OK- so my DH and I made our afternoon "date" about making Miss Prissy's Bator. The thing we had the most trouble with you ask?... pulling apart that pesky lamp to get the light bulb parts! The only thing we purchased was the $8 water thermostat. We do still need to get some small mesh to lay in for the last 3 days so the chicks don't fall through! Ended up subbing my plastic tupperware dish for the black meat carton because when I cut down the carton down it was just too flimsy. The current rack is from our toaster oven, the box from Cheesecake Factory delivery at Christmas (thank you MIL), the little fan from an old external hard drive box, the lamp was shade-less and I don't know where to put it anyway, and purchased the temp/humidity gage from WalMart for $7. I am going to make an at-home water wiggler to use with the temp for a bit to get it zero'd in more on the right temp of 99/100 internal temp. Right now we have surface air at 104- so a bit of tweaking to do... but not much! Plus- the 2" styro carton holds that temp a LONG time. Good to know. Also working on the humidity. Out here in Colorado it's dry dry dry... so that might make tweakinga bit more difficult. Heard someone in Arizona say that 60%-70% in their bator for the first 18 days worked best due to the lack of outdoor humidity. Anyone else want to pipe in on that, ,let me know.
That is a most excellent incubator! Good luck with hatching. Let it run for a solid week before you put eggs in. They tend to reach an initial plateau after a few days then settle down and run like a charm. Make sure you enter the homemade incubator contest. $20 gift cert is on the line!
Congdon this sounds sooooo familiar. We had a baby sitter on Friday night and what do me and my hubby do? Build an incubator. your's looks alot better than mine. My cooler was smaller but that will help control the hatching craze. No more room, no more chicks!! If I do decide I need more room I'm thinking about buying the 2" thick sheets of foam insulation that measure 2' x 4' and building the box out of that.
Love it! I have 36 eggs hatching as we speak. 14 out so far! I was just thinking that there has to be a way to make a bator my kiddos could easily see in. Right now I am using the hovabator I borrowed from my extension agent. You have inspired me!
