I'm currently gathering supplies to make me a MissPrissy bator. I'm anxious to get it together and start making it work. I'll start on my own mutt eggs until I've (hopefully) got it running smoothly.
Anyway... we live in a big old house with no central heat or cooling. I'm in the mountains of southwest New Mexico, so our winters aren't extreme, but we do get cold. We heat the house with a wood stove, and that only heats about half of it. It gets pretty chilly during the nights in that half of the house - probably into the 50's.
The rest of the house, including my bedroom, the sewing room, and the laundry room, really get no benefits from the heater. I put my digital thermometer/hygrometer that I got for the bator in my room yesterday, and the temps swung from 48 degrees to 63 degrees.
The living room swings much more than that, going from mid 50's to high 70's, depending on how much wood I've stuck in the stove.
There is also a basement/cellar, with access only from outside the house. I think temperatures are quite a bit more stable down there. But we're rarely down there, and I'm afraid that any problem that came up during incubation wouldn't be noticed and remedied quickly enough.
So my question is, in an old tumbledown house like this, do I have any chance of getting a styrofoam bator to hold constant temps? Is it hopeless to even try? Is there something I can do to enhance it to keep a steady temperature? Would you put it in the part of the house that is warm during the day, or keep it where it's always cool? Do I dare stick it in the basement?
Anyway... we live in a big old house with no central heat or cooling. I'm in the mountains of southwest New Mexico, so our winters aren't extreme, but we do get cold. We heat the house with a wood stove, and that only heats about half of it. It gets pretty chilly during the nights in that half of the house - probably into the 50's.
The rest of the house, including my bedroom, the sewing room, and the laundry room, really get no benefits from the heater. I put my digital thermometer/hygrometer that I got for the bator in my room yesterday, and the temps swung from 48 degrees to 63 degrees.
The living room swings much more than that, going from mid 50's to high 70's, depending on how much wood I've stuck in the stove.
There is also a basement/cellar, with access only from outside the house. I think temperatures are quite a bit more stable down there. But we're rarely down there, and I'm afraid that any problem that came up during incubation wouldn't be noticed and remedied quickly enough.
So my question is, in an old tumbledown house like this, do I have any chance of getting a styrofoam bator to hold constant temps? Is it hopeless to even try? Is there something I can do to enhance it to keep a steady temperature? Would you put it in the part of the house that is warm during the day, or keep it where it's always cool? Do I dare stick it in the basement?
