How much airflow is too much for a hatcher?

[Edwards' East of Eden]

#1: I got lazy and left this way too late, but if I don't get it finished I can hatch in my incubator.

#2: How much airflow is too much airflow? Can you take a peek at a 30-some second youtube video ? Ignore the temperature, if you can see it, and ignore the humidity setup. I'm trying to a) get my heat sinks up to temperature, and b) make sure I don't have too much airflow going over where eggs will be hatching before I finetune temperature and humidity. I figure if I have to change the fan speed, then temperature and humidity will both change, so ... fan first.

It's a $6 4" fan from WallyWorld, and it's one speed ... but I have a dimmer available, and my lamp can live without it for a few days if I need to slow down the breeze in there. I made that little wire arch and stapled on a little flag of gauze material so you can see how much the air is moving - that will be coming out, too, once it's right.

That's jelly jars of water around the bottom, supporting the hardware cloth. I am planning to put the soft anti-skid shelf-liner over the hardware cloth before I get much further in this process. I have two of the small 40watt bulbs in a splitter in the end - because I'm paranoid that a bulb will burn out, and that way at least one will maybe stay burning. And I put a couple more holes in my water heater thermostat, to encourage more airflow in there and hopefully a more steady temperature, and the thermostat is attached to a 4" metal outlet box for an additional heat sink, also hoping to encourage a steadier temperature in the hatcher.

Critiques? Turn down the fan?

 

[Bantam Chase]

I'm watching this one! I'm in the process of building a cooler-bator, but mainly for hatching right now. I'm wondering if I even need a fan, and if so, will the $5 True Value one (just like your walmart one) work, or do I need to salvage a computer fan?

I'm copying Rush Lane Poultry's desgin, and they had a lot of good pointers with the hot water heater thermostat... I think yours needs to be a bit closer to the bulb - the guy said about an inch and a half... and with 3 holes in the front and an additional one in the back he was getting very little swings. I figure he sells these things and hatches like crazy in them, so he must know what's going on!


'Cmon experts - what do you think? Big fan, little fan, or no fan?

 

[BairleaFarm]

Ive got three of them. One in the bator and 2 in the hatcher. They work well.

 

[Arielle]

I have the same wally world fan in my homemade incubator because it coat $6-7 and a new pc fan and converter was way more than that! Use Pc and converter if it is free or you have a space requirement.

I started with a still air incubator and added PC fan because the air cells did not grow like they are supposed to; fan moves more air out of the incubator and helped get the air cells on track. If you are setting eggs on one layer, a fn is not required, just know the temp is not 99 degrees all over. Rather, 102 on top of the eggs and 99degrees at the mid-height, and lower temp on the screen. Even with a fan I cannot get an even temp and it is still stratified. Makes me feel better though.

 

[Edwards' East of Eden]

Thank you! I sure hope it works out, because I've got eggs in there for lockdown! Wish me luck!

http://tinyurl.com/43s5v7l

I did wind up sitting the metal box that I have the water heater thermometer mounted to horizontally, instead of vertically, and on top of one of my bowls with wadded up paper towels in it. There's aquarium airline tubing snaking in from a hole in the side, down into that bowl to keep the paper towels damp. Matter of fact, there's airline tubing snaking all over the place to deposit water - turns out that one of those cajun injectors for turkeys fits perfectly into the airline tubing, if you don't put in the needle.

The layering temperature thing was driving me crazy, too, until I built a ziploc water-wiggler and put the temperature probe in it. I don't worry nearly so much now, so long as I keep the water wiggler on the same level as the eggs.

 

[Bantam Chase]

fwiw - i went to Goodwill and bought a Pedi-paws from the 90s that had an 120v AC to 12v DC adapter. Putting it together now