Hova Bator 1602N Thermal Air incubator

[llambert]

2 questions...

1. Is a Hova bator 1602N Thermal air incubator good for peafowl eggs?

2. If so, I purchased a used one and it came with a automatic turner for chicken eggs. Is there a way to modify this for them to lay on their sides? The chicken egg trays are for eggs that are up and down - not sideways.

Help! I need advice.

 

[crzy4peafowl]

I use hovabators for incubating/hatching. Have pretty decent hatch rates. I do not use turner. I turn by hand 3X day

 

[DylansMom]

2 questions...

1. Is a Hova bator 1602N Thermal air incubator good for peafowl eggs?

2. If so, I purchased a used one and it came with a automatic turner for chicken eggs. Is there a way to modify this for them to lay on their sides? The chicken egg trays are for eggs that are up and down - not sideways.

Help! I need advice.

I have a Hovabator genesis, 1588 I think. It has worked great, but it is not a still air, it has a fan. I also purchased the auto turner when I bought the incubator, might as well have thrown that money away. It said it could handle 9 goose eggs, so I assumed 9 pea eggs would be about the same. It was fine with 3 eggs and 6 eggs, but after we got to 9, the arms all snapped off in less than 2 days. They are plastic and there was no way to fix them as the plastic itself broke. I have turned by hand ever since. I can fit about 24 eggs in the bator, so being limited to 9 didn't make a lot of sense anyway.

 

[PeepsCA]

2 questions...

1. Is a Hova bator 1602N Thermal air incubator good for peafowl eggs?

2. If so, I purchased a used one and it came with a automatic turner for chicken eggs. Is there a way to modify this for them to lay on their sides? The chicken egg trays are for eggs that are up and down - not sideways.

Help! I need advice.

GQF makes Goose Egg turners that will work for Peafowl eggs... but IMO, they are just Chicken Egg turners, with half the racks removed and the 3 remaining racks modified to accommodate larger eggs (and they cost more than a Chicken Egg turner!

). Maybe by looking at this pic below you can make some modifications to your Chicken Egg turner? I was able to do this to 2 of mine, and they did/do work ok with 4 eggs per rack, but I prefer to incubate my Peafowl eggs in my Dickey incubator (a cabinet style incubator), if I have the room.

The eggs need to be laid on their sides in the Hova bator tho, in order to be tilted/turned enough to keep the embryo from sticking to internal the membrane.

I highly recommend CAREFULLY dabbing a tiny bit of mineral oil onto all the pivot points... like where the egg rack arms contact/rest in the rails, and also the little channel the motor arm fits into (I used a q-tip), to help prevent anything from binding up and breaking. Be sure you do NOT get any of the oil on the areas the eggs are in contact with, and also make sure not to touch the eggs with oily fingers!

If you go this route vs just hand turning your Peafowl eggs, a lot of people that use this type of turner setup will put in a little extra effort and gently flip the eggs over end to end, back and forth a few times a day (in addition to letting the egg turner automatically tilt the eggs all day/night). Some people also rotate the eggs to different spots in the racks every few days as well (or if you are lazy like me, lol... I just rotated the top of the incubator a 1/4 turn every few days) to make sure the eggs were getting more even heat throughout the entire incubation.

Best of luck.

 

[llambert]

I am having a very hard time getting the temp accurate. It will go from 90 to 106 and I just can't seem to get it to 99. Any advice?

 

[DylansMom]

GQF makes Goose Egg turners that will work for Peafowl eggs... but IMO, they are just Chicken Egg turners, with half the racks removed and the 3 remaining racks modified to accommodate larger eggs (and they cost more than a Chicken Egg turner!

). Maybe by looking at this pic below you can make some modifications to your Chicken Egg turner? I was able to do this to 2 of mine, and they did/do work ok with 4 eggs per rack, but I prefer to incubate my Peafowl eggs in my Dickey incubator (a cabinet style incubator), if I have the room.

The eggs need to be laid on their sides in the Hova bator tho, in order to be tilted/turned enough to keep the embryo from sticking to internal the membrane.

I highly recommend CAREFULLY dabbing a tiny bit of mineral oil onto all the pivot points... like where the egg rack arms contact/rest in the rails, and also the little channel the motor arm fits into (I used a q-tip), to help prevent anything from binding up and breaking. Be sure you do NOT get any of the oil on the areas the eggs are in contact with, and also make sure not to touch the eggs with oily fingers!

If you go this route vs just hand turning your Peafowl eggs, a lot of people that use this type of turner setup will put in a little extra effort and gently flip the eggs over end to end, back and forth a few times a day (in addition to letting the egg turner automatically tilt the eggs all day/night). Some people also rotate the eggs to different spots in the racks every few days as well (or if you are lazy like me, lol... I just rotated the top of the incubator a 1/4 turn every few days) to make sure the eggs were getting more even heat throughout the entire incubation.

Best of luck.

These are exactly what I had, but all the little arms snapped right off, with only 3 eggs in each rack.

 

[DylansMom]

I am having a very hard time getting the temp accurate. It will go from 90 to 106 and I just can't seem to get it to 99. Any advice?

We have been given 2 used Styrofoam incubators over the years and both of them did the same thing. I think the thermostat/thermometer goes bad in them after a couple of years, you may need a new one.

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote:

If you go this route vs just hand turning your Peafowl eggs, a lot of people that use this type of turner setup will put in a little extra effort and gently flip the eggs over end to end, back and forth a few times a day (in addition to letting the egg turner automatically tilt the eggs all day/night). Some people also rotate the eggs to different spots in the racks every few days as well (or if you are lazy like me, lol... I just rotated the top of the incubator a 1/4 turn every few days) to make sure the eggs were getting more even heat throughout the entire incubation.

Best of luck.

These are exactly what I had, but all the little arms snapped right off, with only 3 eggs in each rack.

I'm wondering if they were either defective, or put together wrong causing extra stress on the arms? I set 4 Peafowl eggs in each of my modified racks, and nothing broke... but I did dab mineral oil on all the pivot points to prevent anything from binding up, as I mentioned above.

And these were not brand new turners/racks, before that I went thru several 5-6 month long hatching seasons where I would continually double stuff my Chicken Egg turners with a full load plus an extra 30 Guinea fowl eggs (and a decent sized thermometer/hygrometer) on top all hatching season long

...

... and none of the racks broke back then either, lol.

Maybe GQF changed the quality of the plastic they use for their egg turners

Hopefully you got your money back or got a replacement.