I Love my incubator... Is that bad??

[Singlemaple]

So as you probably read from the title of this thread... I absolutely LOVE my incubator...

I picked it up last spring from someone on craigslist for $200 .. It's a 250 egg incubator, self rotating with 3 shelves for eggs and a shelf on the bottom for the chicks..

I don't know what the brand is ( my niece took the sticker off lol) I do remember the guy saying that he bought it in the early 90's from another guy and he said it was built late 80's ( you really can tell it was built 30 yrs ago)

But it works great!!

This is the second time I have used it.. Here are my results.

I placed 120 eggs in on April 8th,
By lock down 20 eggs showed no growth so I removed them.
My chicks started hatching on the 28th and by the 30th I had 85 chicks!

85/100 eggs hatched...

Now what to do with 85 chicks... Guess I have a new layer flock and dinner lol

Do you love your incubator? What brand is it? How long have you had it? Have you had an absolutely amazing hatch?

- Hanaah

 

[ChickenLegs13]

My Lectric Hen beats a real hen any day of the week! I like to hatch eggs *when I want to* and not have to put up with the drama associated with a broody hen.
Mostly I hatch quail. My HovaBator has been running nonstop since end of Feb when my quail started laying again. Every once in a while I hatch a few select chicken eggs when I need some more hens or have eaten up all my roosters.

 

[cmfarm]

I have a NOM45 by Natureform and it is huge and I love it. It holds 1300 eggs (although I have yet to fill it). I do a lot of staggered hatches in it. It works great I have really good hatch rates.

 

[HickoryHollow]

I will have to let you know on this one. I am in the middle of my first hatch in my new DIY home made cabinet incubator. I have 2 auto turners full in a staggered hatch inside. The first will lock down a week from yesterday. I will move them to my Farm Innovators for hatching. The two tuners are a week apart for hatching.

 

[claudiab]

Wow...I have a Brinsea Octagon 20 with turning cradle. Only holds 24 chicken eggs. I have had it since 10-13. Have hatched 4 batches (22 out of 24 eggs EVERY time), and am now on my 5th batch. I LOVE this incubator, too! My husband would be saying thank goodness it's ONLY 24 eggs and not 100! It seems like I always have this thing going! Do you have any trouble selling all those chicks? So far I have had no problems, but then I am not selling the quanity of babies that you have. My problem is I want to KEEP all the little darlins'!!! And, my Grand-daughter makes it even harder to sell them!

 

[KatGold]

I would like to know more about your NOM 45. I was looking for a little hatcher because my little LG was ruined. I ran across a NOM-45 on Craigslist for $500 obo. It's obviously more than I need, but I've always fancied the idea of hatching chicks to sell.

In all seriousness, maybe it's a bad idea. I'm not sure I want to manage all those chicks. But on the other hand, maybe there is such a thing as "hatching for others" as a business. I have no idea if this kind of market exists or is worthwhile.

Do tell me more about your NOM and maybe even how you use it mostly.

A little rambling, please forgive!