Homemade Incubator!!

[duckcommander22]

Just finished my new incubator and for the first 3 hours it has held temp at 99.9 degrees! I will be getting 8 khaki campbell eggs next week! Is there any thing specific for duck eggs that I should do? More humid? What temp should it be exactly?
Thank You!!!

 

[darkbluespace]

I made my incubator too! I have two now actually. I am about to incubate duck eggs for the 3rd time. The first time I thought they needed higher humidity and my ducks all grew too big to hatch.

The second time I tried dry incubating where I added NO water until day 18 and 6/6 hatched with a little help as they were still a bit too big. That hatch was at about 35% humidity. This time I will be trying for about 25 to 30% humidity during incubation. This time I hope to let my duck finish sitting on and hatching them though. She has been trying all summer for babies!

Do you have a fan or is it still air?

I hope your hatch goes well!

 

[duckcommander22]

Thanks for the advice about humidity! When I don't add water the humidity is at about 40%. I do have a fan in there that I took out of a old computer which is working perfect for now. What kind of heating element do you use? I use a light bulb but I noticed that my temp gets one or two degrees too high sometimes. And the only thing I can think of to fix that is to hook the light bulb up to a dimmer.
Again thanks for the advice!

 

[darkbluespace]

I have top vents I play with to get humidity lower... I have a light bulb in mine and I used a dimmer for my first two hatches. I had to watch it like a hawk! That was in the Spring before it got hot... temperature is much harder to control that way if room temp if fluctuating much. I plan to keep hatching so I got a couple of these thermostats and they have been amazing. I really don't even have to think about temp these days.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/10A-110V-Di...758?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19ebf67fe6

 

[duckcommander22]

I have seen a ton of people use those! I guess they must work then!! I will find one and order it.
Thanks again for all the help!

 

[duckcommander22]

Just ordered one but rush shipped it!

 

[darkbluespace]

They do work... I just used the thermometer I had in the bator to adjust the temp, rather than the digital readout on the unit. It will make your incubation a hundred times easier!

It is nice if someone else can benefit from all my blunderings

 

[duckcommander22]

How do I hook up the temp controller?

 

[darkbluespace]

I Googled my model and found a photo of how to wire it.