I have been incubating a very important batch of eggs in my Sportsman incubator. I cannot seem to get a good hatch in it, so I am going to use another incubator to hatch out of. I have a forced-air Little Giant and a Still-Air Little Giant. The forced air, I have never been able to get ANYTHING to hatch out of. The still-air has had good hatches but I am concerned that they are coming from a fanned environment and going into one with no air circulation. Then there's the issue of the still air will hold the temperature and humidity very well but when the eggs start to hatch, the temperature in the incubator drops, as much as 5 degrees yesterday. Which would you use? The still air or the forced air and please tell me why!
Hi there. It's a shame your hatches haven't been successful. Keep trying. Personally, I am a big fan of Brinsea Incubators. Last year, I put 12 eggs in (4 Polish, 6 Leghorns, 2 Buff Sussex) in the Semi-Automatic incubator. It is a forced air one. It was very good, although someone left the lid open one night! It is hard to maintain humidity than my old still air one but humidity is allowed to vary. From that hatch, all but 2 eggs did not hatch, although they were fertile from candelling them. On the other hand, I used to have a still air incubator. It was okay, putting 20 eggs in typically. After 21 days of waiting, pacing, washing, turning and humidifying, I got 5 chicks, but the eggs were fertile. The humidity was easy to maintain, but it is not a big issue generally. Temperature however was harder to control. Given your situation, I'd recommend that you borrow/buy/rent a different incubator. Perhaps your current ones might have lost their mojo? If you get a hatch, great! You will know that your incubators just aren't there and you will need to replace them. If not, perhaps your eggs just aren't fertile or you might have not followed certain steps. My choice: go for forced air, still air used to be very popular but forced air do have higher hatch rates, so it said in my poultry magazine. Apparently, forced air is good at keeping the temperature steady for hatch, while still air can cause bacteria to build quickly and cause problems with the eggs. You just need to follow humidity guidelines with forced air, since it is harder to control but still air has more temperature issues, which is far more important.
