I started them in the incubator today! 6-20-12

[Amanda Patrick]

oopsy daisy! i would have had more too but I found some that were at the time buried and i thought it was a very old egg but was okay inside. I put numerous bags of sand down and it helps so much with the heat. I live in Indiana by the lake so it gets humid as heck. but Grandma has a huge Newfie dog and needs A/C so thats why I put it at her house and its only a 7 min walk so I dont have to waste gas. What type of bator do you have?

 

[Cotton42]

It's a homemade cooler incubator my husband and I put together yesterday. This is the first time we've tried to hatch chicks, so fingers crossed!

 

[Amanda Patrick]

good luck! i viewed a bunch of differernt types of homemade incubators and wanted to try to make one myself but I dipped out

 

[SilverDuck284]

Mine is also a home made cooler incubator! Is yours forced or still air? I put a fan in mine, it holds temp very well.

 

[Cotton42]

Awesome! There is a fan in mine, so I guess that would make it forced air? The temp fluctuates from about 98 degrees to 101 degrees, but I'm pretty happy with that. I figure a chicken egg under a mama is going to fluctuate a little bit too.

 

[SilverDuck284]

Are you using a water heater thermostat? I had a fluctuating temp until I flipped it around. You want the metal surface just 2-3 inches from the actual bulb. I now have near pin point accuracy. Since you already started you probably shouldn't mess with it, but it's deffidently something to think about before the next one. My temps float around 99.5 within points of a degree. Are you using a styro cooler, or plastic?

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[Cotton42]

Wow, that's pretty awesome. I'll have to fix that for the next batch. It's made out of a plastic cooler, an old one we had sitting around. What wattage is your bulb? I can't decide if the 60 is too much or the 40 is too little.

 

[Cotton42]

Oh, and yes, it is a water heater thermostat.

 

[SilverDuck284]

Mines plastic too. I tried a styro at first, but it's way too flimsy. So I upgraded it to plastic. If I ever modify it or make a new one I would get Velcro to mount the 'stat, in my haste I just super glued it. Lol. But it works, I drilled a hole so I can fit a screwdriver thru from the outside to adjust it. I'm currently using a 40 watt, but if you mount the stat to pick up the radiant heat like I explained, I don't think it would make much difference except that the bulb would be lit for shorter periods. I will have to test it, but as stable as my temps have been, I'm not worried about it right now.

With your 'stat reading ambient temp there is a lot of lag between when the Bator reaches 99.5 and when the stat senses it, so that's how you get spikes. With a more powerful bulb your spikes could be much worse. I think you're safe with 40 if that's what you're using now, getting the 98-102. I think you will be ok, save the adjustments for after the hatch. This way you can make notes on how it turned out and what you can do better. Experimenting now could cause more problems.

 

[Amanda Patrick]

wow if you get a chance, could you posst a picture of it?