JAMarlow
Songster
For the first time in a long time I wanted to hatch chicken eggs this spring. Which meant buying a new incubator. I thought I would share my thoughts.
After a lot of research i settled on the Maticoopx 20 Egg Incubator to use for hatching chicken eggs from a very rare breed. I chose to get 2 20 egg instead of 1 30 egg because of the slightly smaller size, which fit better in the room and specific space that I had. It also allowed me to stagger egg hatches, with one incubator a week earlier than the other. I imagine having two units would also work really well in a scenario where one unit is used for lock-down while the other is used for the incubation process. I don't regret getting 2 of the smaller size instead of one larger incubator. The smaller unit size worked great for my situation.
I tested both units with a Govee thermometer and hydrometer, and both were almost spot on. Maybe .5 to 1 degrees off near the edge but exact right in the center, and at most 1 to 1.5 percentage difference on the moisture. The unit has a fan which circulates the warm air and humidity and in my 2 incubators did a great job. I don't feel like it had any dramatic hot and cold spots. The chicks hatched in a tight cluster, with two on late day 20, and the rest either on the due date or the day after.
I did a dry hatch, so I had to be creative with how to keep the humidity down. With one I set a cup of water near the water entry point (the shoe string method still caused too much humidity). With the other incubator I used plastic wrap to cover almost all of the water reservoir, and then used the included water bottle to keep that reservoir filled. The last one worked the best. The humidity was kept rock solid at 28-30% throughout the hatch. When lockdown time came I uncovered even more of the water reservoir to bring the humidity up to 65% to 70%.
I liked the way the eggs are handled in this unit. Instead of being rolled around in a circle, the eggs are cradled and then once an hour tilted the other direction. My eggs were shipped, so for a few days I didn't set up the cradles to be rocked to give the air sacs more time to settle down. On cradles that didn't have a full set of eggs I used rubber bands to cushion them in an upright position. The cradles and the tilting mechanism are able to come out easily when it was time for lockdown, and all the pieces of this part of the unit are easy to clean.
I have a separate egg candler flashlight, but used the one that is built into the lid of the Maticoopx most of the time. These were lighter colored eggs, and with room lights out the built-in candler did it just fine. Plus, by using the built in candler I could then use my separate candler to shine light in from both the bottom and the top. This gave me a great view of what was going on inside the egg (see attached picture). I don't know if it is powerful enough for the Marans chocolate brown eggs, though.
The main body and top of the incubator have to be hand-cleaned, as there are electrical components in both. Yes, it's a pain, but it is with almost any incubator. It wasn't that hard to clean and I don't find this a minus to the unit. Cleaning is just a fact of life when using any incubator. I used Dawn dish soap and then a final clean with a bleach water mix.
I did buy an aftermarket 3-D printed divider from a buyer on Etsy that could divide the interior of the incubator into 2 or 4 sections. In one of the incubators I used it to divide the eggs so that newly hatched chicks weren't playing egg-soccer with the still-unhatched eggs. It was a very nice addition (do a search for the incubator model to find them).
The units are all cleaned and put away for the season, but I'm looking forward to using them again next spring. They were a great purchase and I recommend them to anyone else wanting to do smaller hatches.
After a lot of research i settled on the Maticoopx 20 Egg Incubator to use for hatching chicken eggs from a very rare breed. I chose to get 2 20 egg instead of 1 30 egg because of the slightly smaller size, which fit better in the room and specific space that I had. It also allowed me to stagger egg hatches, with one incubator a week earlier than the other. I imagine having two units would also work really well in a scenario where one unit is used for lock-down while the other is used for the incubation process. I don't regret getting 2 of the smaller size instead of one larger incubator. The smaller unit size worked great for my situation.
I tested both units with a Govee thermometer and hydrometer, and both were almost spot on. Maybe .5 to 1 degrees off near the edge but exact right in the center, and at most 1 to 1.5 percentage difference on the moisture. The unit has a fan which circulates the warm air and humidity and in my 2 incubators did a great job. I don't feel like it had any dramatic hot and cold spots. The chicks hatched in a tight cluster, with two on late day 20, and the rest either on the due date or the day after.
I did a dry hatch, so I had to be creative with how to keep the humidity down. With one I set a cup of water near the water entry point (the shoe string method still caused too much humidity). With the other incubator I used plastic wrap to cover almost all of the water reservoir, and then used the included water bottle to keep that reservoir filled. The last one worked the best. The humidity was kept rock solid at 28-30% throughout the hatch. When lockdown time came I uncovered even more of the water reservoir to bring the humidity up to 65% to 70%.
I liked the way the eggs are handled in this unit. Instead of being rolled around in a circle, the eggs are cradled and then once an hour tilted the other direction. My eggs were shipped, so for a few days I didn't set up the cradles to be rocked to give the air sacs more time to settle down. On cradles that didn't have a full set of eggs I used rubber bands to cushion them in an upright position. The cradles and the tilting mechanism are able to come out easily when it was time for lockdown, and all the pieces of this part of the unit are easy to clean.
I have a separate egg candler flashlight, but used the one that is built into the lid of the Maticoopx most of the time. These were lighter colored eggs, and with room lights out the built-in candler did it just fine. Plus, by using the built in candler I could then use my separate candler to shine light in from both the bottom and the top. This gave me a great view of what was going on inside the egg (see attached picture). I don't know if it is powerful enough for the Marans chocolate brown eggs, though.
The main body and top of the incubator have to be hand-cleaned, as there are electrical components in both. Yes, it's a pain, but it is with almost any incubator. It wasn't that hard to clean and I don't find this a minus to the unit. Cleaning is just a fact of life when using any incubator. I used Dawn dish soap and then a final clean with a bleach water mix.
I did buy an aftermarket 3-D printed divider from a buyer on Etsy that could divide the interior of the incubator into 2 or 4 sections. In one of the incubators I used it to divide the eggs so that newly hatched chicks weren't playing egg-soccer with the still-unhatched eggs. It was a very nice addition (do a search for the incubator model to find them).
The units are all cleaned and put away for the season, but I'm looking forward to using them again next spring. They were a great purchase and I recommend them to anyone else wanting to do smaller hatches.
