I design and build my own incubators.

[NomoreCSIncubating]

The only thing I worry about in my incubators is if a bulb burns out.

I don't worry about the size the aircell
I don't worry about egg weights.
I don't worry about humidity
I don't worry about how long an egg has been in the incubator.

The only thing I have to do is when:
The egg starts if it doesn't a new egg goes into it place

If the egg stops it gets pulled and a new egg goes in its place

If the chick peeps the membrane when it does it goes into the hatch area and a new egg goes into it place.

There is no worry about adding water or adjusting temp

There is no acclamation period I can have eggs in the incubator an hour after it is plugged in and it has run through a couple of heat cycles.

Recently I had a need to have the smaller incubator that would hold 60 quail eggs it is one of the pictures and from the moment I cut the first piece of wood until I had eggs incubating in it was just a little bit over 2 hrs

 

[Fishkeeper]

I went to Texas I said I thought you said it was hot here? They said it's 100' I come back to Iowa. I think I'm dying, sweat rolling off of me. It's much hotter here! Its 80', humidity definitely makes it feel much hotter!

You feel hotter in humid air because your body can't evaporate sweat away from you to cool you as easily when it's humid. It's not anything to do with heat exchange, it's because air that already has a lot of water vapor in it won't take on more as easily, which makes evaporative cooling harder. We use evaporative cooling to stay comfortable.

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

That all sounds really impressive, but how do you prevent shrinkwrapping?

Well to answer it better is to think of the membrane like skin/hide the more water you add to a hide and add heat the hide gets thicker and shrinks making a rawhide where as if you just let it air dry on its own it is thin and plyable with very little shrinkage

I am not over moisturizing the membrane that eleminates the shrink wrap

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Well first off I am running at a lower temp then everyone my incubators are producing an indirect heat that is not water based and my incubators are always dry from start to finish !

How did you figure out that you could run at a lower temp, and what temp to run at?

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

How did you figure out that you could run at a lower temp, and what temp to run at?

Well at one time we didn't go by the temp we went by the wattage of the bulb in the incubator and how the eggs did by the heat produced per amount of egg in the incubator and what time of the year it was.

It always has gone by how the embryo acts inside the egg the slower it is the colder it is the faster it moves is to hot and nice steady movement it is pretty close to right.

My thermometers are just guides not a set incubating temp and I can have 3 thermometers all have different temps I just try to find the goldilocks point and keep it there on each particular thermometer so I never worry about calibration of them.