Incubator recommendations

[ChickenJoeYoung]

I have no experience incubating eggs and only plan to do a small number at a time. Maybe 5 at a time.

What incubator would you recommend and why?

 

[0wen]

The Brinsea Mini Advance. It's a little pricey for a small capacity incubator but it's a quality unit. I'm a first time incubator user and before my eggs arrived I bought a Little Giant 9300 still air unit for around $45 and added the auto-egg turner for another $45. Then I read reviews about terrible temperature control and found this to be true when I plugged the unit in and tested in out. I then bought a circulated fan unit because I read that it helped (and it did, but it was still poor temperature control) - the fan was around $45 also. So after shipping of fan and purchase price and takes, I had around $170 in the LG9300 and wasn't happy with it - so I returned it all for a refund and ordered the Brinsea (for only around $15-20 more than I had in the LG9300) and have been happy with it.

The Brinsea hold temps, and recovers temperature quickly after having to open it for egg candling or such. It holds humidity as well (but has no humidity guage - you can buy one at Petsmart for about $7). Basically, the Brinsea is a plug-and-play device, meaning you simply place the eggs in it and then leave it aong except to add water every couple of days or to get the eggs out to candle them. It's small enough to sit on my desk so I can see the eggs at all times - because it's a clear dome for easy observation. I can't see myself needing to hatch more than 7 eggs at a time for the foreseeable future so it's great for my small hobby (and my kid's 4-h projects). If I ever need a larger incubator, I'm likely to buy the next size Brinsea simply because I've been happy with this one.

(I also added the Brinsea EcoGlow 20) and will possibly buy the Brinsea candler sometime for a future hatching...

 

[ChickenJoeYoung]

Thanks for a great response. Looking into it now.