little giant incubator

[jessica117]

Quote:
Nice pics. I've been thinking of doing this, as I have 10 computers in my garage I bought for a buck at a city auction. I just bought my LG at an auction this weekend.

Question: I see you ran the wires from the fan back down toward the bottom of the circuit board, but the manner and area of connection are hidden on the pics. Can you tell me where the connection to the power is?

Another picture showing that would be great.

I didn't actually tie into the heater unit power. My fan was a different voltage so I used an old ac adapter that was the right voltage for the fan. I just cut off the end and hard wired it to the fan. I ran the cord through the heater box just to keep it out of the way. My bator is full of eggs at the moment so a pic might take a week or so to get.

 

[Buster52]

Actually, that's good enough. I was wondering how you got it to work without frying the fan, thought maybe there was a hookup of just the right power somewhere on the board.

I'll scratch around to see if I can find something with the right wattage. I've got old adapters all over the place, being the hoarder that I am.

 

[Buster52]

Okay, I scrounged a fan from one of the power supplies on one of my many computers and tried it on a variable voltage adapter. First fan didn't work, but the second one is working like a charm. Thanks for the idea!

Now we'll see how well it regulates the temp.

 

[jessica117]

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It helped regulate mine a whole bunch. I still fluctuate a degree or so throughout the day but that is wonderful in comparison to what it was doing before the addition of the fan. I just try to get it right at 100 during the warmest part of the day. It will come down a little at night but I'd rather have that than having it cook my babies.

Hope it works as well for you

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
Unless you're hatching tadpoles or something, over 70% humidity is too high. Your chicks may be suffocating because there's more water than oxygen in the air. I dry incubate, in my humid climate that means the humidity for incubation is about 45%. day 18, I raise it to 55%. When the chicks begin to hatch, it goes up, and I prop two corners of the lid just slightly, so there's a teeny gap, for more air, to keep it from going over 65%, (I try to keep it between 55% and 60%) and so the chicks have enough oxygen.

I get my LG temp stable before adding eggs, give it a good 24 hours to make sure, add eggs, and leave it alone. It will take about 24 hours for the temp inside the eggs to reach 100F. Then it'll be fine.

I have a fan in mine, which I highly recommend, and if you can get a used one on ebay or craigslist or something, get a turner if you can. Then it's almost like a Kopele's gaget, "set it & forget it". I check my temp several times a day, because the 'bator's in a room I go into often, it's my combo storage/pantry/and the extra fridge is in there, so I take a peek whenever I go in for something. But I rarely touch that knob. If I do have to adjust it, it's in the tiniest increments I can, and I wait several hours before touching it again.

Most of the wild temp and humidity swings are caused by people adjusting everything constantly. Learning to keep your hands off of it, and off the eggs, helps a great deal.

Especially in the first week, the eggs can handle temps a little cool. It won't hurt them to wait overnight before raising the temp, if you have to. If you give plenty of time for self correction, most of the time you'll find you don't need to do anything to it.

If the temp in the room fluctuates a lot, you may need to put a towel or something over the 'bator to hold the heat during the cooler periods. That's better than adjusting the temp all the time.

I watch the actual hatches more closely, and check them often, so if a chick is in real distress I can rescue it. My last hatch, earlier this week, 17 eggs out of 23 hatched, all with no help, all healthy, all still just fine. The 6 that did not hatch never pipped. I didn't open them, so all I can say is they didn't hatch.

Even when I didn't have a fan or a turner, I got pretty good hatches. I turned by hand 3 to 5 times a day, depending on whether I worked that day, and rearranged the eggs each time I turned them. I still got about 85-90% hatches. That's with my own hens' eggs, or eggs obtained locally. Shipped egg haven't done so well, but that's not the fault of the 'bator. Shipped eggs can have ll kinds of damage, and you don't know the condition of the parent birds, or if they have bad genetics.

 

[Buster52]

Well, I thought I had it set right. I had set it for between 99 or 100 degrees or so, sometimes it reached 101, but that wasn't too bad.

This morning my wife checked it (day 4) and it was 119. I have no idea what happened.

I reckon that's about $30 worth of rare turkey eggs down the drain.

 

[walkswithdog]

DON'T give up on the turkey eggs!!! I just had a spike of 134 and had survivors. Let em roll. How far along were they? Nearer to hatch is dicier, but earlier than 10 days and they have a significant chance to hatch. 14 and over and you'll have lost some or most but some may yet survive.

(Stupid dogs unplugged my fans.)

The 10 day eggs hatched five out of seven, and the 14 day eggs almost hatched two, one pipped through it's own umbilical cord and bled to death, can't blame the bator for that one. One survived.

Give em a chance.

 

[2txmedics]

I rec'd an LG for my 50th bday...and we added a fan off a computer, has a blue light, looks real pretty...temp holding at 99.1...but my humidity is at 66% how do I lower it so I can put in my fertile eggs?....I read that you can keep them at 43-50% and they do fine....for the first 18days, and then 60-80 is also fine in humidy???

I also read that you only fill some of the troughs for the period of the 18days...WHICH ONES? thanks Im so new to all this my first bator!!!! and my first chickens 22wks ago.

 

[rockyspringsfarm]

I am just finishing a hatch in a LG Still Air with egg turner .... incubated at 100.4 to 101 with a humidity av of 48%...with both plug holes open. I found LG's extremely sensitive to adjustments....you have to make them very carefully. Even the slightest movement on the adjustment makes a difference. IF you make an adjustment....go away and come back in an hour or 2 and see what it's doing....You have to give it time to calibrate the adjustment.
Once you have it set, like someone else said, leave it alone. On day 18 I upped the humidity to 75%, the temp to 101/102 and closed one plug hole. Eggs started pipping the evening of 20th day and majority of hatch was finished by AM of the 22nd day. Looks like about a 95% hatch on these (30 eggs of 37 passed the 14 day candle, 7 were infertile)

Go to Wal Mart and look in the hardware section for their little digital themometer/hygrometer. It is $6.47 (it is the exact same thing as offered on eBay for $12 and $13). It works great. I have one in each of 4 incubators....3 LG and 1 Hovabator.

I had a problem with my Hovabator' humidity when I set it. I put water into it initially.... a very small amount (like 1 Tablespoon). The humidity went up to 71% and I could not get it down. Poured out what water was in there and wiped it out....still stayed at that high humidity.... finally took the bottom outside in this 100+ degree temp we are going through (East Texas, very humid here) set it on top of my car in the direct sun for several hours....Brought it back in...reset it...humidity was a steady 48%. Unless you have the liner for the bottom (I did not for this one....it's old)styrofoam absorbs water and will release it back when the heat is on. I do not add water at all unless the humidity is in the 30%+ or - range. I try to keep the humidity between 48-51% until hatch...then increase it. Once I learned the LG I don't have a problem with them.

However, I just found a Leahy redwood incubator in excellent working condition, inside and out, for a real good price and will be moving all incubating to that on the next go around.

Peggy

 

[Buster52]

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Well, that is very encouraging. I would hate to lose these. They are about day 4, so it looks like I might have time to fix the problem??

I realize now I should have stolen my setting hen's eggs for the test and put some of these turkeys under her as an insurance policy. At least I would know I would get a few to hatch. Now it is much more dicey.