- Jul 5, 2014
- 6
- 3
- 9
OK, here goes nothing. I have been looking for an incubator for a couple of months now. I didn't want a small one and it seems all the big ones are VERY expensive. I could have bought a GQF that hold a couple of hundred eggs for a little over $600 but on my budget I didn't really want to shell out that kind of money and besides I wanted a incubator that would hold more than the cheapest GQF one. So, after searching for for a few months and not finding what I was looking for I started thinking, why don't I just build one myself.
Getting the dimensions on what size I needed to build it to hold the amount of eggs I wanted wasn't hard at all. Even figuring out how I was going to circulate the air and heating it was kind of easy. Keeping the humidity in check was probably the easiest part. The very hardest part was trying to figure out how i was going to do the egg turner! LOL
After searching the internet over and over I just couldn't find a good way to make it happen. I didn't want to start building until I figured out how I was going to make something to turn these eggs and how much room it was going to take up in my cabinet. I saw the diagram here on BYC but i couldn't make it work to save my life. I had the DC motor, the roll switches, relays and power supplies but every way I tried it I just couldn't make it happen. I'm still going to tinker with that way later just to satisfy my mind that I can get it to work but for now I have found a different way to make the trays do a fully automatic turn without me having to be around. Here is how I'm going to do that part. I will explain in more detail later but for now a quick run down of the turner. I am going to take a two station irrigation timer, connect the DC power supply to it and on one station turn the trays at certain times and on the other station I'm going to reverse the polarity and turn the trays the other way at different times. I bought the timer for $20 set it up on the floor to try it out and it is working great but more on that later.
I then started to get materials together and get prepared to try to build this thing that I have no idea will work or not. Regardless if it works or not me the wife and kids are having fun doing it.
Yesterday my son and I took two sheets of 3/4" plywood and made our cuts to start the cabinet. As I settled down last night all I could think about was getting started on what has been racking my brain for the past two months. While I was thinking about all of it I was thinking about this site and how other people may be doing what I am doing now. I am still new to BYC but whether I succeed or fail, I wanted to share what I am doing with all of you guys and gals. I didn't want to wait to share everything because this seems pretty in depth and is going to take a week or two with my job and the hours I have to work so I decided to break it down in a few phases. It seems that all that I am typing is going to be very long sometimes and if I'm annoying any of you guys just let me know and I can just stop the post and not bother any of you with this. I just thought it may help someone and if I can do that I'm going to do my best to answer any questions that I can but please keep in mind I am learning a lot of this as I go. Don't get me wrong. I know birds very well and growing up I used incubators a lot with my dad but that has been many years ago and my dad past on years ago so the only help I get is from good people like on this site, the internet and my wife and two kids that are 12 and 14 years old who is loving doing this together..... So.. Here Goes!
Phase 1
This is my selfie pic giving you guys the thumbs up. haha
This is the starting of the cabinet. I haven't started screwing it together at this point but when I did I used wood glue between the pieces to seal it up from air getting in or out. Not sure if that's going to work but I did it anyway.
Here you see my Lovely wife showing you that we put 1X2's from the back to 3 inches from the front for the top shelf we are going to build. Also, notice we have screwed the bottom together to the sides and don't forget the glue! I'm not sure if it's going to help but i guess it sure cant hurt.
Here you can see that I have put the bottom, sides and back on. I have also brought down a top shelf for my hardware about six inches from the top. That is about what the GQF incubators are. For the dimensions, it is 35 inches tall,16 inches from inside to inside wide and 45 inches deep. I want to be able to 3 sets of trays that hold 3 flats of eggs each. After looking at my dimensions I may even be able to do 4 trays and have the capacity to hold 12 flats of eggs.
Here is the top shelf which is notched out for the back to fit tight on the back side. The shelf goes all the way to the back and is 3 inches from the front allowing the air to flow forward to the bottom.
Here it is with the shelf in. It is not and will not be fastened to the supports it is sitting on so I can remove it to be able to install the egg racks and other hardware later. After that is installed I will screw it to the supports and seal around the edges and also cut a few holes in it.
Here you can see that i have cut 2 holes for fresh air intake. I will be able to open and close those later but for now I'm just leaving them there to see whats going to happen.
The cabinet was just sitting on the ground and I wanted it to be a little higher so I build a good sturdy stand about 16 inches high for it. Believe it or not the wood for the stand was free from some pallets I got from my work. We just trash them so I have an unlimited supply of them and they each have 3 eight foot 2X4's and a bunch of 1X4's so I thought that was kind of cool. It doesn't look level in the pic but I assure you, it level. hehe
Here is the cabinet on the stand.
On the stand with top shelf in.
A view at more of an angle.
Well, that's it for now. That was one day's work. So far I have $44 in plywood $10 in a box of screws and about $15 dollars in 1X2's. (Note: I will paint the cabinet with at least 3 coats for better insulation and sealing later)
I do have other hardware as I mentioned before but all total right now I only have about $119 invested. The only things I do not have is metal for the racks and a heater coil that I will either buy for $20 or get it from a hair dryer or something like that. I am hoping to get this thing up and running for under $200. That's not too bad for a incubator that will hold 2232 quail eggs if the trays are double stacked or 405 regular eggs. The cheapest GQF incubator is the 1202E series and it only holds 1368 quail eggs or 270 regular eggs so even if I go over budget just a little I will come out to the good I hope.
Sorry this was so long but I had to tell it the right way. as i said before, I don't want to be annoying and if i am please just message me and let me know and we can delete this thread or something.
If not then I will continue to take a few pictures and keep you guys and gals updated and maybe break it out by phases. I'm only doing this in hopes it may help my new friends on BYC. It may look kind of redneck but most of our monies go on the family, school, bills etc.... haha Like 95% of us real people trying to get by!
Thanks for reading.
Gleason
Getting the dimensions on what size I needed to build it to hold the amount of eggs I wanted wasn't hard at all. Even figuring out how I was going to circulate the air and heating it was kind of easy. Keeping the humidity in check was probably the easiest part. The very hardest part was trying to figure out how i was going to do the egg turner! LOL
After searching the internet over and over I just couldn't find a good way to make it happen. I didn't want to start building until I figured out how I was going to make something to turn these eggs and how much room it was going to take up in my cabinet. I saw the diagram here on BYC but i couldn't make it work to save my life. I had the DC motor, the roll switches, relays and power supplies but every way I tried it I just couldn't make it happen. I'm still going to tinker with that way later just to satisfy my mind that I can get it to work but for now I have found a different way to make the trays do a fully automatic turn without me having to be around. Here is how I'm going to do that part. I will explain in more detail later but for now a quick run down of the turner. I am going to take a two station irrigation timer, connect the DC power supply to it and on one station turn the trays at certain times and on the other station I'm going to reverse the polarity and turn the trays the other way at different times. I bought the timer for $20 set it up on the floor to try it out and it is working great but more on that later.
I then started to get materials together and get prepared to try to build this thing that I have no idea will work or not. Regardless if it works or not me the wife and kids are having fun doing it.
Yesterday my son and I took two sheets of 3/4" plywood and made our cuts to start the cabinet. As I settled down last night all I could think about was getting started on what has been racking my brain for the past two months. While I was thinking about all of it I was thinking about this site and how other people may be doing what I am doing now. I am still new to BYC but whether I succeed or fail, I wanted to share what I am doing with all of you guys and gals. I didn't want to wait to share everything because this seems pretty in depth and is going to take a week or two with my job and the hours I have to work so I decided to break it down in a few phases. It seems that all that I am typing is going to be very long sometimes and if I'm annoying any of you guys just let me know and I can just stop the post and not bother any of you with this. I just thought it may help someone and if I can do that I'm going to do my best to answer any questions that I can but please keep in mind I am learning a lot of this as I go. Don't get me wrong. I know birds very well and growing up I used incubators a lot with my dad but that has been many years ago and my dad past on years ago so the only help I get is from good people like on this site, the internet and my wife and two kids that are 12 and 14 years old who is loving doing this together..... So.. Here Goes!
Phase 1
This is my selfie pic giving you guys the thumbs up. haha
This is the starting of the cabinet. I haven't started screwing it together at this point but when I did I used wood glue between the pieces to seal it up from air getting in or out. Not sure if that's going to work but I did it anyway.
Here you see my Lovely wife showing you that we put 1X2's from the back to 3 inches from the front for the top shelf we are going to build. Also, notice we have screwed the bottom together to the sides and don't forget the glue! I'm not sure if it's going to help but i guess it sure cant hurt.
Here you can see that I have put the bottom, sides and back on. I have also brought down a top shelf for my hardware about six inches from the top. That is about what the GQF incubators are. For the dimensions, it is 35 inches tall,16 inches from inside to inside wide and 45 inches deep. I want to be able to 3 sets of trays that hold 3 flats of eggs each. After looking at my dimensions I may even be able to do 4 trays and have the capacity to hold 12 flats of eggs.
Here is the top shelf which is notched out for the back to fit tight on the back side. The shelf goes all the way to the back and is 3 inches from the front allowing the air to flow forward to the bottom.
Here it is with the shelf in. It is not and will not be fastened to the supports it is sitting on so I can remove it to be able to install the egg racks and other hardware later. After that is installed I will screw it to the supports and seal around the edges and also cut a few holes in it.
Here you can see that i have cut 2 holes for fresh air intake. I will be able to open and close those later but for now I'm just leaving them there to see whats going to happen.
The cabinet was just sitting on the ground and I wanted it to be a little higher so I build a good sturdy stand about 16 inches high for it. Believe it or not the wood for the stand was free from some pallets I got from my work. We just trash them so I have an unlimited supply of them and they each have 3 eight foot 2X4's and a bunch of 1X4's so I thought that was kind of cool. It doesn't look level in the pic but I assure you, it level. hehe
Here is the cabinet on the stand.
On the stand with top shelf in.
A view at more of an angle.
Well, that's it for now. That was one day's work. So far I have $44 in plywood $10 in a box of screws and about $15 dollars in 1X2's. (Note: I will paint the cabinet with at least 3 coats for better insulation and sealing later)
I do have other hardware as I mentioned before but all total right now I only have about $119 invested. The only things I do not have is metal for the racks and a heater coil that I will either buy for $20 or get it from a hair dryer or something like that. I am hoping to get this thing up and running for under $200. That's not too bad for a incubator that will hold 2232 quail eggs if the trays are double stacked or 405 regular eggs. The cheapest GQF incubator is the 1202E series and it only holds 1368 quail eggs or 270 regular eggs so even if I go over budget just a little I will come out to the good I hope.
Sorry this was so long but I had to tell it the right way. as i said before, I don't want to be annoying and if i am please just message me and let me know and we can delete this thread or something.
If not then I will continue to take a few pictures and keep you guys and gals updated and maybe break it out by phases. I'm only doing this in hopes it may help my new friends on BYC. It may look kind of redneck but most of our monies go on the family, school, bills etc.... haha Like 95% of us real people trying to get by!
Thanks for reading.
Gleason
