Incubator offgassing

[Slothinc]

Hello all! I purchased one of the new Chickcozy incubators and have my first batch of eggs in it. (And shipped eggs no less - urggg!!) Love the design and everything about the incubator except for the SMELL. It smells like horrible chemicals from offgassing. I’m scared all of my eggs are going to be killed by it. They have been incubating for about 48 hours now. I thought the offgassing would go away quickly, but it is just horrible. I just put some baking soda in the bottom but not sure if that will help. Any other suggestions would be appreciated!! I do have a yogurt maker that you can set the temp on so I could probably put the eggs in there temporarily if someone has cleaning suggestions.

 

[007Sean]

Did you set up the bator and run it, making adjustments for temp and humidity or did you just start it up and put the eggs in as soon as it came up to temp?

 

[Slothinc]

I let it run for several hours before setting eggs, including letting it run for half an hour outside with the top off to try and help with offgassing. It just smells even worse now though, instead of better. The temp and humidity have been stable the entire time. I have an extra thermometer/hygrometer inside to be sure.

 

[007Sean]

Is this the one you have?
If so, it might be the plastic non-slip mat that is off gassing. Idk, it may just take longer to air out or to stop off gassing! You might contact the manufacture an express your concerns! I'm sorry I can't be of much help.

 

[Slothinc]

Thank you 007Sean! That picture is of the incubator. Right before I went to bed last night I took the eggs out for about 20 mins and cleaned the whole thing down, took out the silicone mat, and added a charcoal air purifier mat that I made. I do think that the mat was causing problems because it smelled horrible when I pulled it out. I also increased the temp by one degree because I felt like the bottom of the incubator wasn’t getting nearly as warm as the top. It’s totally my bad for experimenting with a new incubator on shipped eggs, I don’t expect a hatch after all of this. I will contact Chickcozy and ask them about the offgassing. If anyone is thinking about getting the Chickcozy incubator you may want to see what happens with this hatch before making a decision.

 

[alinkayukh]

Hey! Did you hatch any babies from this incubator? It’s in my Amazon cart right now, I was going to purchase it but came across this post.

 

[Slothinc]

It’s funny that you should ask! I have been trying to leave an Amazon review for the incubator but they are censoring reviews on this incubator! They won’t let me leave one even though I purchased the product. The only people who can leave a review are the Vine reviewers who received it for free. That to me is really shady! I was thinking I should make a post about it!!

I have a few gripes with the incubator, though the biggest one by far is the “silicone mat” in the bottom. If you do buy this I recommend removing it before you ever turn it on. It is not silicone because every time it is heated it has a HORRIBLE offgassing smell. My chicks go into lockdown tomorrow so this evening I decided to try and offgass the mat it in the oven, upon recommendation of google haha. So I did but there was a horrible chemical smell in my whole house from it! But the bottom of the incubator is made so that you need something placed there so the chicks don’t fall into the water. I will update when I figure out what to do.

The chicks are due on Weds this week so we will see what happens. I will update. I do think it holds the temp at a constant temp but I feel like the sides are not nearly as warm as the middle. I bought two extra digital thermometers (therm pro and govee) and the therm pro usually says 98-99 and the govee usually 96 (I hope that’s not accurate!!) I have played with an under the tongue thermometer as well which always shows regular temps that I would expect. I have it set to 100.5 right now. The good news is that I have 18 eggs developing out of the 25 I originally put in there. But yeah that bottom mat piece is NOT GOOD. I can’t say the incubator is totally worthless because I like it for almost everything else. But just be really careful with that mat and be ready to improvise. I ended up filling the extra water areas with baking soda to absorb smell after taking out the mat, and I put an activated charcoal mat in the bottom too, but it’s not sturdy enough to work as the actual mat, I don’t think. I’ll update when I see how the hatching goes.

P.S. I reached out to Chickcozy via their website when I was having the issues with the horrible smell and they never responded… so I don’t trust that they have good customer service by any means.

 

[007Sean]

It’s funny that you should ask! I have been trying to leave an Amazon review for the incubator but they are censoring reviews on this incubator! They won’t let me leave one even though I purchased the product. The only people who can leave a review are the Vine reviewers who received it for free. That to me is really shady! I was thinking I should make a post about it!!

I have a few gripes with the incubator, though the biggest one by far is the “silicone mat” in the bottom. If you do buy this I recommend removing it before you ever turn it on. It is not silicone because every time it is heated it has a HORRIBLE offgassing smell. My chicks go into lockdown tomorrow so this evening I decided to try and offgass the mat it in the oven, upon recommendation of google haha. So I did but there was a horrible chemical smell in my whole house from it! But the bottom of the incubator is made so that you need something placed there so the chicks don’t fall into the water. I will update when I figure out what to do.

The chicks are due on Weds this week so we will see what happens. I will update. I do think it holds the temp at a constant temp but I feel like the sides are not nearly as warm as the middle. I bought two extra digital thermometers (therm pro and govee) and the therm pro usually says 98-99 and the govee usually 96 (I hope that’s not accurate!!) I have played with an under the tongue thermometer as well which always shows regular temps that I would expect. I have it set to 100.5 right now. The good news is that I have 18 eggs developing out of the 25 I originally put in there. But yeah that bottom mat piece is NOT GOOD. I can’t say the incubator is totally worthless because I like it for almost everything else. But just be really careful with that mat and be ready to improvise. I ended up filling the extra water areas with baking soda to absorb smell after taking out the mat, and I put an activated charcoal mat in the bottom too, but it’s not sturdy enough to work as the actual mat, I don’t think. I’ll update when I see how the hatching goes.

P.S. I reached out to Chickcozy via their website when I was having the issues with the horrible smell and they never responded… so I don’t trust that they have good customer service by any means.

Could you cut out a piece of 1/4" HC to replace the mat? .....lots of incubator manufactures use HC for a hatching surface!

 

[luv4hart]

Any luck with that hatch?

 

[Slothinc]

@luv4hart I had a “decent” hatch. Of my 20 shipped eggs, 6 didn’t develop, and 10 of the remaining 14 hatched. The other 4 developed most of the way but didn’t ever pip. I attempted to assist one of them but it just wasn’t strong enough to get out of the shell. Having 4 eggs not hatch properly makes me a little apprehensive. However having 50% of the shipped eggs hatch is pretty good. I like that this incubator seems to hold the temp well. But I changed my temperature settings up to 100.5 because I thing the factory setting was too low.

I have another batch in there and it isn’t faring as well. Out of 26 shipped eggs from two different people, I only have 10 developing. Several started but ended up with blood rings. Chickcozy customer service is terrible - I have contacted them twice now with questions and they simply don’t respond. And they don’t allow people who have actually purchased the incubator to leave Amazon reviews for it (not sure how they managed to pull that off.) Pretty sketchy. But I think overall it can be considered a decent incubator in the $120 range.