- Aug 3, 2012
- 182
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I didn't have good results in the first 8 eBay FBCM eggs I incubated. Zero chicks. I asked the seller to send more because only three out of the eight were fertile. She agreed and sent 6 or 8 more. Only one of those hatched. Got a fine FBCM hen who lets me pick her up any time I want.
I took another stab at it. I found a really nice and inexpensive automatic digital incubator on Amazon. It was less than $100. It is forced air whereas my first one--a borrowed Brinsea Octagon 10--was not. The new one is automatic temperature control with digital readouts for temp and humidity. It has auto-turn, auto-lock down, countdown display, and external water top off with a half tank for the first 18 days and a full tank for the last 3 days of incubation. Oh, it also has a powerful built-in candler.
It was easy to maintain about 50% RH then 75% RH. They really have the water volume figured out. It stayed at 99.5F steadily, except when I took off the lid of course. Once or twice toward the end it indicated 100F, but went back down half a degree quickly.
Even during Hurricane Sally when the electricity cut off and on many times one day, it didn't lose its memory or reset. I really like this unit.
I got this last batch of eggs from beckysbirdsoftexas. They are light Sussex. All 8 were fertile. I got 5 spunky little yellow fuzzballs in the brooder now. Two of the late hatchlings are still in the incubator gaining strength. They seem to be doing well. They only hatched a few hours ago. One unfortunately died fairly recently. So that's an outstanding result in my opinion. She has that certification to ship across state lines. We did FedEx 2 day air instead of USPS.
I'm trying to get them all to imprint on me. I hate chickens that run away like cockroaches.
I took another stab at it. I found a really nice and inexpensive automatic digital incubator on Amazon. It was less than $100. It is forced air whereas my first one--a borrowed Brinsea Octagon 10--was not. The new one is automatic temperature control with digital readouts for temp and humidity. It has auto-turn, auto-lock down, countdown display, and external water top off with a half tank for the first 18 days and a full tank for the last 3 days of incubation. Oh, it also has a powerful built-in candler.
It was easy to maintain about 50% RH then 75% RH. They really have the water volume figured out. It stayed at 99.5F steadily, except when I took off the lid of course. Once or twice toward the end it indicated 100F, but went back down half a degree quickly.
Even during Hurricane Sally when the electricity cut off and on many times one day, it didn't lose its memory or reset. I really like this unit.
I got this last batch of eggs from beckysbirdsoftexas. They are light Sussex. All 8 were fertile. I got 5 spunky little yellow fuzzballs in the brooder now. Two of the late hatchlings are still in the incubator gaining strength. They seem to be doing well. They only hatched a few hours ago. One unfortunately died fairly recently. So that's an outstanding result in my opinion. She has that certification to ship across state lines. We did FedEx 2 day air instead of USPS.
I'm trying to get them all to imprint on me. I hate chickens that run away like cockroaches.
