Incubator for tropics

[roktzar]

hi all,

I'm in the market for a small incubator which isn't going to break the bank and am after some advice for models appropriate for tropical climates. Our humidity is often over 60% here, so I want to get a model for which this won't interfere with humidity regulation in the incubator. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers, H

 

[ChickenCanoe]

My advice for extremely high humidity climates is to put the incubator in a room with a de-humidifier. Someone I know in the Philippines has used that method.
That said, humidity is usually from 50-80% plus humidity here and it hasn't been a problem for me or my broody hens to successfully hatch.
What part of the world are you located?

 

[Arielle2]

CC is right on.

I used a room with A/C and dehumidifier. Closed the room to control the environment.
And used an incubator with a fan in it.
Summers here in northeast USA are too humid to manage easily, using a simple little Giant incubator.

 

[roktzar]

Thanks for your replies. I'm in northern Australia on a cattle station. We run on solar, but as this is our rainy season, we use the diesel generator a lot this time of year - so running an aircon/dehumidifier constantly for 21 days isn't a great option. My old incubator which had zero success (because of difficulty controlling humidity I think) was an extremely cheap job just to check that my roosters were even fertile before investing in a better incubator, so maybe that's the crux of my issues with humidity given your feedback.

Are there any stand out small incubators you would recommend?

Cheers

 

[roktzar]

My advice for extremely high humidity climates is to put the incubator in a room with a de-humidifier. Someone I know in the Philippines has used that method.
That said, humidity is usually from 50-80% plus humidity here and it hasn't been a problem for me or my broody hens to successfully hatch.
What part of the world are you located?

what model incubator do you use?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I use both a little giant and I have a large homemade cabinet incubator with a separate hatcher. Both compartments have independent temperature and water reservoirs.

 

[Altfrizzle]

I would think that a forced air incubator would work best. I find that in the summer, when my ambient humidity is high, the fan and heater in the incubator dry out the inside. I had about 70% RH outside the incubator and 40% in, with proper water management.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Thanks for your replies. I'm in northern Australia on a cattle station. We run on solar, but as this is our rainy season, we use the diesel generator a lot this time of year - so running an aircon/dehumidifier constantly for 21 days isn't a great option. My old incubator which had zero success (because of difficulty controlling humidity I think) was an extremely cheap job just to check that my roosters were even fertile before investing in a better incubator, so maybe that's the crux of my issues with humidity given your feedback.

Are there any stand out small incubators you would recommend?

Cheers

You might try a different method. Rather than try to control humidity, start out dry with no water in the reservoirs. Using a little pocket gram scale, weigh your eggs before setting and then at weekly intervals. Eggs should lose about 0.65% weight per day if the humidity is right.
If after a week, they are losing too much weight, add water. If they're close or too heavy, just continue dry till day 19 or 20 when you can add a bit of water.
With no water in the incubator, the heat should dry the incubator enough.
There are some inexpensive small incubators with lots of controls from China on Alibaba. I haven't used one but they are tempting.
There's a few fully automatic 48 egg incubators in the following link for about $75 US.
https://xch86.en.alibaba.com/produc...tml?spm=a2700.8304367.topnav.4.7bd0a1adKAKhsu

 

[Altfrizzle]

Using a little pocket gram scale, weigh your eggs before setting and then at weekly intervals. Eggs should lose about 0.65% weight per day if the humidity is right.

Do you use this method? 0.65% loss per day is %13.65 for a full 21 days. I'd read that it should be %13.5 loss by lockdown/IP.