Little Giant Incubator Tricks

[Arielle]

 

[cmom]

Arielle is correct. I mostly use my styrofoam incubators as hatchers but if I'm just doing a small batch of eggs I use my styrofoam incubators to incubate in otherwise I have a cabinet incubator I use to incubate in. The chicks do crawl around in the incubators and bump into and roll around the other hatched eggs.

 

[rayray983]

When I did my last hatch I kinda staggered thehatch i sat my first eggs 2 days before my second setput them all into lock down at same time and had 43 out of 45 hatch with no issues they fluffed up yes they walked over the other eggs but the 2 day delay gave me enough time to pull dry chicks from first set before second set started externally piping

 

[Arielle]

You had a nice hatch rate!!

 

[rayray983]

Thanks I followed a lot of the tricks on here one thing I did do to help keep temp up since my room temps were dropping to 58 degrees was take to hand towels fold up and cover the viewing windows made it hold temp a lot better!! Didn't cover any of the holes just the clear windows with the towels worked like a charm I'd recommend this incubator to anyone at the price and no I didn't have a turner hand turned and installed my own PC fan

 

[cmom]

Thanks I followed a lot of the tricks on here one thing I did do to help keep temp up since my room temps were dropping to 58 degrees was take to hand towels fold up and cover the viewing windows made it hold temp a lot better!! Didn't cover any of the holes just the clear windows with the towels worked like a charm I'd recommend this incubator to anyone at the price and no I didn't have a turner hand turned and installed my own PC fan

I agree, you had a great hatch rate. When I use my styrofoam incubators I do the same thing and put towels over the viewing windows and I agree it helps. I also installed PC fans but I did eventually replaced the PC fan in my still air LG with a LG fan. I put a PC fan in one of my still air Hova-Bators but that is the kind of fan the factory puts in.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Learned something new-- covering the windows with towels to up the temps. Yeah.

Was it hard to replace with the LG fan?? Where does it fit-- in the usuall spot beside the electronics in the lid??

 

[QueenofKings]

A quick update for my fellow LG users!
I have 5 chicks in the brooder (a few with pasty butt, but I cleared up the worst one today and tomorrow, they are getting friends and yogurt!!) and another egg hatching.
I culled 6 eggs - there was no development except for the last one which had a saddle shaped air cell. Didn't break the inner membrane and gave it a light poke and tried chirping to it, seemed as though the chick died sometime during lockdown.

And I left another 4 eggs in the incubator which still seemed viable. Air cells were fine and there were the proper dark masses. Only lost one chick - malpositoned, yolk rupture, comprised the rest of the eggs since it was a very dirty hatch, etc.

 

[rayray983]

Okay have a question had a older man tell me he used to stack eggs in his little giant forced are incubator claimed he could fit 80 eggs in it if he stacked is this possible and has anyone else done it cause I have a dozen extra eggs and don't want to eat them if I can hatch them with the others I put in incubator yesterday

 

[aart]

Okay have a question had a older man tell me he used to stack eggs in his little giant forced are incubator claimed he could fit 80 eggs in it if he stacked is this possible and has anyone else done it cause I have a dozen extra eggs and don't want to eat them if I can hatch them with the others I put in incubator yesterday

I suppose it's possible, but sounds like mess to me. Even 41 eggs hatching is VERY crowded in there.
There's barely room for the hatched chicks to stand on the wire without bumping their heads on the heating element, let alone on top of a layer of eggs.
Stacking would also inhibit even heat distribution.