Little Giant 5200 incubator

[Dogfish]

I inherited one of these, along with the egg turner, 5200/6200, with a 7200 forced air fan. Going to hatch some quail at first, and then move on to other birds as I get opportunities.

Is this a reasonable incubator? The price is right, $0.00, and my mother in law says they used it to hatch chickens, quail, and pheasants back in the 90's. It is in working order, and appears to come up to temp just fine after an hour.

One question, do they still make the egg cups for the small eggs, or is there an easy way to MacGuyver the large egg holders to hold quail and pheasant eggs?

Thanks!

 

[FenDruadin]

Hello,

I have a more recent Little Giant, and it works fine. If your room temps fluctuate, the incubator may too. I solve it quite simply by placing a towel over one window, folded up, and the extra insulation evens out fluctuations. Mine is still air, so the forced air may help even it out too.

And yes, they most certainly do make quail rails, and they are WELL worth the cost (about $12-15 for a set of six), because you can fit 20 quail eggs per rail versus 7 chicken or duck eggs. I often have three rails of duck eggs incubating with three rails of quail, which translates to 21 duck eggs and 60 quail.

And quail are super fun to hatch. Anything else will seem to take forever after hatching quail. They incubate only 18 days, hatch within a day of pipping, nearly all of them will hatch every time, and they take literally about 90 seconds to zip open and pop out once they start. Oh, and they seem to coordinate their hatch so that you'll have about twenty pop out in the space of five minutes, and suddenly your incubator is overflowing with squirmy wet little bodies--it's like picking up a water bucket and discovering a nest of maggots under it. I know, gross, but they are kind of gross until they fluff out. Then they are the world's cutest babies ever.

Good luck. The price is most definitely right and with a little patience, it should do well for you. They're not the most favoritest incubator on this forum, but mine works just fine and hopefully yours will too.