Incubator help

[Nickcbillman]

Ok guys so I built a cabinet incubator and got the incukit thermostat heater and fan in one from incubator warehouse .com. We loaded our first mess of 200 eggs and at 21 days nothing. Every egg was only what seemed a few days developed. We didn’t have any ventilation other than a two inch gap in the door crack, Temp was set between 99.5-100.5 and eggs are on a turner. We have a new batch to put in and bought an auto humidity machine. And drilled holes into the cabinet but now the heater won’t get above 98 degrees. And humidity won’t go over 22%. Obviously too many holes but my question is how much ventilation is needed and is this possibly the reason our first batch didn’t take.

 

[Smileybans]

For my hatches I have the vent holes on my incubators at half open for the first 18 days. Then fully open the last three. The last three days the chicks need the most ventilation and the most humidity. I have small incubators, both still and forced, so it’s easier to regulate the ventilation. But try putting tape over the holes you made to increase your humidity and temp. Then remove some of the tape for the last three days to increase oxygen.

Do you also have a separate thermometer and hygrometer in the incubator? The fact that the eggs were only developed a few days at day 21 suggests the temp was low.

 

[Mellowmalt]

not much ventilation is needed, what you had before was probably sufficient. It could be that fumes from the glue caused problems or the temperature was not what you believe it was .
Have you got an additional thermometer apart from the inkbird controller to see what the temperature around the eggs is?

Incubators will have cold spots, they will have hot spots where the heater is and they should be just right where the eggs are. If you just rely on the temp being correct around the heater you will find you will have problems.

Building your own is not easy, literally just a few millimeters difference positioning things can affect everything. It is easy to overventilate and lose all humidity. But the fact that the heater struggles when there is too much ventilation is not a good sign, your heater should be able to handle this and if it can't it is probably underpowered to heat up 200 eggs.

I have no expereince with such a big incubator so wouldn't know what specifications it might need but the heater should be at least 200 watts and the fan needs to be quite powerful.

The designs I have seen used have a fan sucking hot air from the top, blowing it down a back panel compartment and out to rise over the egg holding area.

Just like a dyson vaccuum cleaner is engineered to have the best suction power, the fan needs to be positioned to circulate air as much as possible, just placing a fan in an incubator works but it is better to circulate and direct the flow of air more.