Need help with a hatcher - Hovabator 1602N?*edited*got a 2362

[jerseygirl1]

It looks like I am going to have to buy a hatcher - I have two sets of eggs and setting on different days and I am not planning on playing the humidity game and losing again
Not my intention, but one set of eggs isn't getting shipped until next week. Of course, had I know, I probably wouldn't have bought them. Anyway..........enough whining..............I am looking at the Hovabator 1602N Thermal Air - has anyone tried it? I have a Genesis 1588 for the incubation - then on day 17, I was going to move the first set of eggs to the 1602N and rais the humidity for hatching. Input would be great!

 

[TheFarmMama]

I've been doing exactly that with those two bators with the hatch before these two I'm on now and honestly if you can afford it just go with another Genesis. The 1602 is sooo tempermental if the room temp changes, humidity, etc. I had a disasterous hatch last time for that very reason. Temps spiked and dropped like crazy. Just my person experience-maybe you'll have better luck but I wouldn't suggest it. Good luck!

 

[BigOJoe]

i got a Hova bator 1602N too. I got a little e-bay crazy and bought 2 batches of Maran eggs, and 6 mallard eggs. I had the bator 2 weeks before getting eggs, once i got the temp to 100 it stay, so i thought, great lets get eggs! a week after getting them started the temps started spiking to 105 then down to 95. I would adjust it a little, like a 1/4 to 1/2 turn and nothing and do it several times, them boom it would drop 10 to 12 degrees and same would happen going the other way. for most of the 2 weeks on the chicken eggs it was up and down. I honestly thought i'd have 19 rotten chicken eggs and 8 hatched, i checked the remaining eggs 3 to 4 days later 3 were possible non fertile and 8 were 95 to 99% developed but died short of pipping.

the 6 Mallard eggs ended with 1 hatch and 4 were 99% developed dead in the eggs and one non fertile. not saying it's the bator, but I had a homemade bator i made with my kids for homeschool. we hatched several batches at 75 to 85% success each time, no themostate, just 2 light bulds, i'd unscrew one bulb to lower temp and screw it back in to warm it up. I was so excited about a "REAL" bator.

I currently have 18 call duck eggs, 2 weeks into it and the temp has held solid!

I'm wishing it had a fan in it, thinking that would even out the temp throughout the bator.

so far i'd rate it a 3.25 with 5.0 the best.

 

[jerseygirl1]

I got a 2362 Hovabator on Ebay for hatching, anyone else try it?

 

[nittanyxi]

I'm incubating my first set in a 1602 hovabator right now. As soon as this hatch is done I'm sending it back for a refund. I don't care if they all hatch or none of them hatch. I'm sending it back. It's a nightmare to regulate the temp. Actually it can't be done. The best you can hope for is that it holds steady for a while and then readjust it when it goes wanky.