Need advice on a new incubator

[cjh0907]

I am starting to grow my flock pretty large and want to upgrade from my little giant incubator but i need some advice on what to get. I am a young farmer without deep pockets so im looking for a more reliable incubator for a reasonable price. Any information would be great!

 

[BayGoose]

Brinsea sells quite a few incubators with different features to them and some are more affordable than others. Brinsea sells an incubator call the Octagon 20 and the Mini (Minis hold a smaller number of eggs of course, about 7 chicken eggs. If you want to hatch more at once, go with an Octagon.) They both come in ECO or Advanced version. The ECO is much cheaper because they don't have all the bells and whistles as the advanced do. For example, instead of a digital thermometer, ECOs use mercury. They are all very nice, reliable incubators and the ECOs are pretty affordable. I have an Octagon 20 ECO and a Mini Advanced. I love them both. I have great hatches with them and they make incubating fun and less challenging. With the Octagon 20, you don't even need to buy the turning cradle, you can manually turn the whole incubator from the outside since its shaped as an octagon. They are pretty cool. I had a Little Giant prior to these and it was a lot of work. It was unpredictable. So I upgraded to Brinseas and I am very happy with them. Buy right from their website, it's cheaper.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

My advise is to go with a GQF Sportsman. New ones are pretty pricey, (Around $700.00 plus shipping) but well worth every penny. You can generally find used older models on craigslist, ebay, etc.. for around $200.00.

I'm running two Sportsman incubators right now and plan on adding three more next spring. For my money they can't be beat.

We have a Brinsea too, good incubator, just doesn't hold the amount of eggs for our needs.