Little Giant Incubator owners help!

Date sort Score sort
The Cave

The Cave

Songster
Oct 18, 2020
291
952
186
Ontario, Canada
I am at my wits end....I bought a little giant as a back up incubator and have had great luck with my hovabator so figured why not they are similar minus the LG is digital. Both have fans.

I never trust the digital thermometer/hygro always have two in the bator to be safe. For the first 15 days of my duck eggs the temp in LG was off I noticed. I was setting my digital settings around 101 to keep it at 99ish range. I came home yesterday to 103 :hit NOTHING changed! Same spot, same eggs same everything. So I lowered temps and got it to 99 range again. Come home from work today and AGAIN its at 103. I am so mad...does anyone have any suggestions. Everyone seems ok in the eggs but I am so stressed about deformities.

I made room and switched them to my hovabator because I have 0 trust in LG. It has no vent caps on, more holes from factory than my hovabator. They are inches apart....hovabator holds steady temps, LG cannot.
 
The LG uses cheaper components, and it doesn't try for an exact temperature, just a range. My biggest complaint is that even if you spring for the model with the fan you still can't rely on the incubator to have a uniform temperature.

If the room you're setup in is cooler that 78F I'd recommend covering the unit with a thick towel to insulate it. I have the 10300 and have to set it to 102 to get 99.5 in half the unit. There's a strip that's about 20% of the total in the front that's still 97-98 and a larger area at the back that is between 100 and 102 depending on how much the heater runs. It's much easier to get uniform temps in the summer.

I'd recommend finding that band of moderate temps, hand turn 5 or 7 times daily, and move the eggs around in the safe zone when you're turning them. Candle anything that feels cool and remove it to maximize available room if it's not developing. The other option is to add a stronger, higher speed fan with an external power supply. Something like the old style laptop coolers works fine.
 
Last edited:
The Cave said:
I am at my wits end....I bought a little giant as a back up incubator and have had great luck with my hovabator so figured why not they are similar minus the LG is digital. Both have fans.

I never trust the digital thermometer/hygro always have two in the bator to be safe. For the first 15 days of my duck eggs the temp in LG was off I noticed. I was setting my digital settings around 101 to keep it at 99ish range. I came home yesterday to 103 :hit NOTHING changed! Same spot, same eggs same everything. So I lowered temps and got it to 99 range again. Come home from work today and AGAIN its at 103. I am so mad...does anyone have any suggestions. Everyone seems ok in the eggs but I am so stressed about deformities.

I made room and switched them to my hovabator because I have 0 trust in LG. It has no vent caps on, more holes from factory than my hovabator. They are inches apart....hovabator holds steady temps, LG cannot.
Click to expand...

When I got my first incubator I did a wild amount of reading....Im going to give a disclaimer by saying that what I read about the LG seemed like too many problems for ME to risk buying one. Ive spoken with people who have great luck with them but I went with a Nurture right 360 for my first and second and a converted wine fridge for my third. Ive not been disappointed by my 360

Something must be causing the temps to spike, an air leak, a cold/hot spot, changing temperatures in the house. From what I read a bad thermostat can be a potential cause.

Ive also read that still air incubators are known for having hot and cold spots and the only way to change that would be to add a fan and make it into a forced air model
 
Not sure which model you have, but I bought a 9300 as a hatcher and was so exasperated with the temperature swings, I returned it.😡 Constantly having to fiddle with the temp controls (I encountered the same issue with a Hova-Bator 1602N, with two different units) is crazy-making!

I know @BirdsBeesTrees has some good suggestions, but here's mine: for your peace of mind, get something else. I use Hova-Bator 2370s as hatchers and they hold temps well...and are not that much more expensive.

Best of luck with your hatch!
 
LGs are junk.
I've.used hovabators for forever with good results. Picked up an LG also figuring it was about the same. It was not. Temp spikes killed a couple batches. A couple years later I tried the newer model LG. Their current one. Same thing. Spikes killed that batch.
I ran them side by side with the hovabators that stayed steady. LGs have unreliable thermostats. I will never use one again.
 
If you can return it then go ahead. But if you can't you can make it work for you. I don't pay any attention to mine at all except when I hand turn my eggs. Kiki has a Little Giant too and she's had great success. I hope you do what`s best for you.
 
I agree that if you learn to work with or around its idiosyncrasies you can still get good hatches--it's just more work and worry. I've had a couple perfect hatches with geese and ducks. My first hatch was 21 out of 24 chicken eggs. And the worst hatch I had was 55% with some eggs I knew had come close to freezing.

Just because you see your temperature spiking doesn't mean your egg temperatures vary as much or as fast as the incubator temperature. Even if you spend more money for a "better" incubator there's no reason you shoułd expect every egg to hatch. The incubator is an important variable, but it's far from being the only variable.
 
Redemption said:
When I got my first incubator I did a wild amount of reading....Im going to give a disclaimer by saying that what I read about the LG seemed like too many problems for ME to risk buying one. Ive spoken with people who have great luck with them but I went with a Nurture right 360 for my first and second and a converted wine fridge for my third. Ive not been disappointed by my 360

Something must be causing the temps to spike, an air leak, a cold/hot spot, changing temperatures in the house. From what I read a bad thermostat can be a potential cause.

Ive also read that still air incubators are known for having hot and cold spots and the only way to change that would be to add a fan and make it into a forced air model
Click to expand...
I think it is a bad thermostat in it. I’m going to swap it out for hovabator parts. It has a fan but I have a feeling it’s about as useless as the thermostat. As I heat the eggs with the heat gun and temps range all over incubator
Sierra G said:
I agree that if you learn to work with or around its idiosyncrasies you can still get good hatches--it's just more work and worry. I've had a couple perfect hatches with geese and ducks. My first hatch was 21 out of 24 chicken eggs. And the worst hatch I had was 55% with some eggs I knew had come close to freezing.

Just because you see your temperature spiking doesn't mean your egg temperatures vary as much or as fast as the incubator temperature. Even if you spend more money for a "better" incubator there's no reason you shoułd expect every egg to hatch. The incubator is an important variable, but it's far from being the only variable.
Click to expand...
I did use my heat gun and some eggs read 102-103 as well :(
 

Similar threads

T
HELP! FAULTY INCUBATOR THERMOMETER
Replies
2
Views
154
My15Ducks
M
M
Quick temperature question
2
Replies
11
Views
551
My15Ducks
M
Altairsky
    • Like
Help fixing an old incubator
Replies
8
Views
445
Altairsky
Altairsky
B
    • Like
Incubator Thermometers
Replies
1
Views
506
Debbie292d
Debbie292d
A
Help with my low hatch rate! 😭
Replies
6
Views
288
Annabell1234
A

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom