Homemade Incubator Questions

[Matthew01]

I made a homemade incubator out of a fish tank and used the lamp that you get from tractor supply for chicks. I can't get my humidity up and I have a lid on half of the top.

 

[Pyxis]

That's probably not going to be very reliable. What are you using to regulate the temperature?

Humidity is determined by the surface area of the water. The greater the surface area, the higher the humidity. If you need to raise humidity, add more water surface area.

 

[Matthew01]

I am just moving the light up and down till I get a stedy 101. And if the fertilized eggs are left out in the cold will they still hatch.

 

[Pyxis]

Unfortunately that's probably not going to work well at all. Will you be around constantly to move the light to maintain the temperature? Any change in room temp is going to change it. It's going to be hotter directly under the light than it is elsewhere, how would you deal with that? Aquariums retain heat well, what if it heats up overnight when you're sleeping? Unfortunately I just don't think you're going to have a lot of luck. Take a look in the incubators section to get a better idea of how to build one that will work well and get some type of thermostat to regulate it. Wafer thermostats are fairly inexpensive.

As to whether eggs that get cold will hatch, yes, they can, although the viability of them will decrease depending on how cold you mean. If they freeze they likely won't hatch.

 

[Matthew01]

K thanks