incubator ideas! post your ideas for home made incubators, whether they work or not~

[gwendalynn28]

Can you see this? It is a short video of my first hatch with my homemade incubator.

 

[fried green eggs]

& Congrats on hatching chicks !!!!

 

[fried green eggs]

I use my fridge bator for seed starting. I leave the temps as they were for incubating, put my seeds in my special dirt, and in a few days I have seedlings. Been doing this for 2 years now and it works great. The site doesn't let me post pics, everytime I try it says an error has occured and I should try later. I'll put up a pic sometime.

Great idea but. how long do seeds take can to hatch? The normal 21 days?

 

[3forfree]

Great idea but. how long do seeds take can to hatch? The normal 21 days?

Funny, actually the cucumber seeds sprouted in 2-3days, tomatoes about the same, and yellow onions took about 4 days.

 

[fried green eggs]

I may have to try that. What temp & humidity do you run it at for seeds?

 

[fried green eggs]

Here's a pic of the inside of my new hatching incubator This was a crate shipping box. I used the small crockpot heating element and added 18' rope lighting for added heat. GQF thermostat controls both. It has a small desk top fan. Temps are holding pretty steady and I will be putting eggs in it next week.

 

[3forfree]

starting seeds I left the temps in the 90's but it doesn't need to be that hot, after they sprouted I turned it down to about 80.

 

[quintinp]

Here's a pic of the inside of my new hatching incubator This was a crate shipping box. I used the small crockpot heating element and added 18' rope lighting for added heat. GQF thermostat controls both. It has a small desk top fan. Temps are holding pretty steady and I will be putting eggs in it next week.

Very nice, do you leave the rope/tube lighting on all the time to act as a stabilizer? Or does it shut off with the heating element. I know that one of these days, I will have to try and use one of those heating elements. As for now, I don't have any crock pots on hand, and I don't have any problems with my light bulbs. I like the way it looks though. I especially like the front door.

By the way, I know that you have another cooler incubator, is it the one that had lights, and you changed the lights to the crock pot element?

How many homemade incubators do you have?

I am wondering if a Bi-metal thermostat would work well with a Crock Pot element.

I love the wafer thermostats, but buying the wafers gets expensive.

 

[fried green eggs]

Very nice, do you leave the rope/tube lighting on all the time to act as a stabilizer? Or does it shut off with the heating element. I know that one of these days, I will have to try and use one of those heating elements. As for now, I don't have any crock pots on hand, and I don't have any problems with my light bulbs. I like the way it looks though. I especially like the front door.

By the way, I know that you have another cooler incubator, is it the one that had lights, and you changed the lights to the crock pot element?

How many homemade incubators do you have?

I am wondering if a Bi-metal thermostat would work well with a Crock Pot element.

I love the wafer thermostats, but buying the wafers gets expensive.

Thanks I like how it looks too. : )
I only have two incubators, one for incubating and one for hatching. My first Igloo bator is for day 1-17 and has a cut down to fit auto-turner. It has two 40 watt bulbs for heat, GQF thermostat, computer fan, water filled jars as heat sinks and to keep humidity stable. I have a nightlight that stays on all the time in it so it helps stabilize temps. I like being able to add eggs whenever I want and stagger hatching.

Higher humidity and light bulbs scares me so, my second small igloo for hatching - had the crock pot heating element, GQF and a computer fan. I transfered the crock pot heating element, GQF and Plexiglas to this new hatcher bator. The rope/tube lighting is hooked up with the crock pot heating element and both are controlled by GQF. I put in the desk top fan because I thought a little bigger fan would be better. Now junk small igloo is a $3.00 lose but I got 22 chicks out of it.

I plan to add the now extra computer fan into igloo incubator when I don't have eggs in it but, it's has been in use since I made it and will be for awhile.

I'm sure the Bi-metal thermostat would work fine as that is what many crock pots have in them. I bought the two GQF's and a extra wafer to have on hand. so, I didn't use the Bi-metal thermostat from the crock pot - I put it somewhere for safe keeping and now I can't find it

Before I used the rope/tube lighting for hatcher - I had purchased a working but much older crock pot at a resale shop for $5.00 but when I took it apart - I found it had very fine wire wrapped up and down around the ceramic pot as the heating element and the thermostat was part of the control knob. I took the wires off of the ceramic pot and wrapped it around and between two ceramic insulators and hooked it up for power in hatcher - but it just didn't put off much heat and the wires cooled too quickly. A $5.00 waste. That's when I remembered I had the rope/tube lights and it solved two problems : added heat and safe lighting to be able to see in.

My temp is stable at 99.5-100.0 deg but, I am having a problem getting humidity level up in this new hatcher

I have two cake pans 9"x11" and a 8"x8" filled with water in it and still only getting 43%

GQF Thermostats aren't real cheap at $20.00 to $25.00 but, they are easy to work with and they are suppose to last for years. The extra replacement wafer I bought for it was only $7.00.

 

[fried green eggs]

starting seeds I left the temps in the 90's but it doesn't need to be that hot, after they sprouted I turned it down to about 80.

Thanks