SCORED a working mini-fridge for free!!!!!!

[Slywoody]

OK, back in the early 70's i bought a brand new incubator, one of those round ones that held about roughly 30 eggs. Of course i had bad luck with it. I think i hatched like 1 chick or so. I said never again. Back then i found a guy that had a huge old redwood Leahy Famous incubator and would hatch eggs for folks for .10 cents apiece, so i had him do the hatching and the price was right. Now that i scored the FREE mini-fridge, i'm going for it and building my own. I've did my homework here on BYC, thank you very much everyone. I have 3 questions at this point. I don't get the whole water wiggler thing at all. What is it,what does it do and where do i get one?? Thanks in advance for this info. Woody

ps. I hope i posted this in the right place.

 

[walkswithdog]

You're doing great Woody

I love my mini-fridge bator. A water wiggler is a kiddy toy, usually they have em at dollar stores. It's a little plastic toy filled with water - what we use it for is to "simulate" an egg, if you stick the probe of one of those digital indoor outdoor thermometers in it - then you have a pretty close approximation of what the ACTUAL temp is INSIDE the egg. (Always test to see how far off any thermometer you wil use is from accurate aka calibrate your thermometer.)

Air temps vary sometimes fairly broadly in some incubators WITHOUT actually shifting interior egg temps much at all. Knowing what the temp is inside your eggs offers a certain peace of mind. If you still see too broad a swing - well below 99 or well over 102 INSIDE the egg you know your temps are not stable enough for good incubation.

My temps inside my fake egg (a small jar of flarp putty - a kid toy) run from 99.3 to 100 right now because of the cool down in the temps in the house. That's acceptable. That will work.

Water wigglers can be purchased, made from doubled plastic bags with water in one then rolled around the probe, silly putty encased so it does not dry, even play dough in something so it does not dry, flarp, some people fill fake eggs with a gel of some sort and seal the probe in there. Lots of options, whatever's available.

I like the flarp jar - it's a little shorter than a wiggler - and sits up in a corner out of the way well. I'm still looking for a silly putty one but I'll find it eventually. The little egg sized thing silly putty comes in would be perfect.