She said/He said Who's right? Who's wrong? No one!

[lazy gardener]

I have so much respect for you guys that put so much study into incubating your eggs. I don't mark air cells, and I don't weigh, but I haven't needed to. In the interest of the subject matter of this thread, is that another difference between expensive incubators and homemade or styrofoam, or is it just blind luck? I gather eggs for ten days or less (usually get enough within 5). I turn the incubator on, but set within an hour. All except one of my hatches have been 85%-95%. I have just never had the need to track air cell growth or weight. If I were having low hatch rates I would definitely do that to find what the issue may be, but it's never been a problem. I'm not saying this to say that Brinsea is better, or to show a total hands off POV, I'm just curious if other Brinsea users just set and hatch without all of the record keeping.
On a side note, 4 polish out and a ton of pips when I left for work this morning. Had my usual day 20 arrival last night at 9:00PM. Had 3 at 7:00AM, and my wife said #4 popped out at 8:30. After my last hatch, where the final 2 struggled to get out, I have ammended my "no open 'til day 22" position. If the incubator is half full by the time I get home tonight, I will remove the fluffies to make room for the rest. That will still be 24 hours after the first hatch.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I did briefly open the incubator this morning, but only to romove a half shell that had covered a pip

9:00PM

7:00AM

SC: You shock me. I think you may be dangling your feet over the hippie side of the fence. Amy is gonna double

you when she gets back.

I think that a lot of the "record keeping" that goes on, is mostly related to personality. Same thing with the folks who love to read the research. I'm a gotta read all about it kind of gal, keep copious notes regarding temp checks at the beginning of each hatch, then when I'm comfortable with bator performance, I even relax that standard. But, I have 6 thermometers in there until lock down!

 

[scflock]

SC: You shock me. I think you may be dangling your feet over the hippie side of the fence. Amy is gonna double

you when she gets back.

I think that a lot of the "record keeping" that goes on, is mostly related to personality. Same thing with the folks who love to read the research. I'm a gotta read all about it kind of gal, keep copious notes regarding temp checks at the beginning of each hatch, then when I'm comfortable with bator performance, I even relax that standard. But, I have 6 thermometers in there until lock down!

Nope, no hippie here. I didn't want to open, but if you look at the bottom right corner of the first picture, that egg was pipped last night. This morning it was stuck in the other egg. I didn't want to admit in front of everyone that I had a weak moment, but this thread is supposed to show our honest difference in styles, so I had to bite the bullet. The chicks are still in there, though. If they were in a microwave with whirling helicopter blades, I may be more tempted to remove them, but one thing that is rarely mentioned about Brinsea is that they are extremely safe for chicks.
I kept meticulous notes for my first two hatches, but once I found my sweet spot for temp and humidity, my notes are pretty much: set date, lockdown, due date

 

[WalnutHill]

I have so much respect for you guys that put so much study into incubating your eggs. I don't mark air cells, and I don't weigh, but I haven't needed to. In the interest of the subject matter of this thread, is that another difference between expensive incubators and homemade or styrofoam, or is it just blind luck? I gather eggs for ten days or less (usually get enough within 5). I turn the incubator on, but set within an hour. All except one of my hatches have been 85%-95%. I have just never had the need to track air cell growth or weight. If I were having low hatch rates I would definitely do that to find what the issue may be, but it's never been a problem. I'm not saying this to say that Brinsea is better, or to show a total hands off POV, I'm just curious if other Brinsea users just set and hatch without all of the record keeping.
On a side note, 4 polish out and a ton of pips when I left for work this morning. Had my usual day 20 arrival last night at 9:00PM. Had 3 at 7:00AM, and my wife said #4 popped out at 8:30. After my last hatch, where the final 2 struggled to get out, I have ammended my "no open 'til day 22" position. If the incubator is half full by the time I get home tonight, I will remove the fluffies to make room for the rest. That will still be 24 hours after the first hatch.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I did briefly open the incubator this morning, but only to romove a half shell that had covered a pip

9:00PM

7:00AM

I do believe that Brinsea has put more engineering into their incubation system than many commercial competitors. From the Little Giant 9200 with a "relative" thermostat (set at 30F above ambient, and reset whenever ambient changes) to the vintage Leahy, Farm Master, and other redwood incubators with wafer thermostats (massive thermal mass and inherent moisture retention), and the modern descendants such as the Brinsea, variations in design lead to variations in technique. I had the opportunity to closely examine a Brinsea Ova-Easy and a GQF Sportsman cabinet in the past week. These are known for good to exceptional hatches without much intervention. While eggs can be hatched from anything from a broody hen to a cardboard box with a light bulb, the quantity and quality of the hatch are the goal we all seek.

Brinsea has done the legwork for you. While I could now justify purchasing an Octagon 40 or a couple of Octagon 20s, my homebuilt cabinet is doing a great job of bringing the eggs to lockdown now that I have a working humidity schedule. With the Little Giant 9200s, I did not have enough consistency in incubation temperatures or humidity to determine the cause of my failures last year. This year I used them for lockdown and hatch, and lost a very large percentage of eggs. My homebuilt is a foam incubator, but with great thermal mass from the wood frame and a heat source that never directly heats the eggs. In the off season, I plan to do some modifications to isolate the digital controllers from the incubation cabinet, and to modify the hatcher area to reroute the airstream away from the hatching trays, and to provide air filtration to reduce down and dander in the duct. I haven't finalized the best method for this for my particular incubator. I am now losing very few eggs that show fertile at first candling before they go into lockdown. I now need to fix the issues at hatch, and I've acquired a small Leahy redwood incubator for the purpose. I have transferred some test chicken eggs from my cabinet at day 14 to finish out incubation. Air cells and chick development are optimal for the transfer, and I am continuing "relatively low humidity incubation" at 25-30% until day 18 as long as candling shows sufficient moisture below the membrane.

Once my engineering is complete, I fully expect my program to be as effective and efficient as yours. I wonder how many eggs Brinsea went through in perfecting their incubator designs and digital controllers?

 

[scflock]

I do believe that Brinsea has put more engineering into their incubation system than many commercial competitors. From the Little Giant 9200 with a "relative" thermostat (set at 30F above ambient, and reset whenever ambient changes) to the vintage Leahy, Farm Master, and other redwood incubators with wafer thermostats (massive thermal mass and inherent moisture retention), and the modern descendants such as the Brinsea, variations in design lead to variations in technique. I had the opportunity to closely examine a Brinsea Ova-Easy and a GQF Sportsman cabinet in the past week. These are known for good to exceptional hatches without much intervention. While eggs can be hatched from anything from a broody hen to a cardboard box with a light bulb, the quantity and quality of the hatch are the goal we all seek.

Brinsea has done the legwork for you. While I could now justify purchasing an Octagon 40 or a couple of Octagon 20s, my homebuilt cabinet is doing a great job of bringing the eggs to lockdown now that I have a working humidity schedule. With the Little Giant 9200s, I did not have enough consistency in incubation temperatures or humidity to determine the cause of my failures last year. This year I used them for lockdown and hatch, and lost a very large percentage of eggs. My homebuilt is a foam incubator, but with great thermal mass from the wood frame and a heat source that never directly heats the eggs. In the off season, I plan to do some modifications to isolate the digital controllers from the incubation cabinet, and to modify the hatcher area to reroute the airstream away from the hatching trays, and to provide air filtration to reduce down and dander in the duct. I haven't finalized the best method for this for my particular incubator. I am now losing very few eggs that show fertile at first candling before they go into lockdown. I now need to fix the issues at hatch, and I've acquired a small Leahy redwood incubator for the purpose. I have transferred some test chicken eggs from my cabinet at day 14 to finish out incubation. Air cells and chick development are optimal for the transfer, and I am continuing "relatively low humidity incubation" at 25-30% until day 18 as long as candling shows sufficient moisture below the membrane.

Once my engineering is complete, I fully expect my program to be as effective and efficient as yours. I wonder how many eggs Brinsea went through in perfecting their incubator designs and digital controllers?

I would be curious to know how long it took to perfect the design myself. If I'm not mistaken, the Octagon 20 was redesigned around 2013-14, but maybe that was just the cooldown feature (which I haven't used).
The Brinsea is definitely a high cost/capacity, but for a user like me it is the perfect solution. I am constantly hatching and selling, and I work 55+ hours/week, so I needed the comfort of knowing that my incubator could run on it's own. I have paid for the incubator with money made from the hatches, so now I am "in the black". I hope that a few Eco users will join the thread, because that unit's cost is about half of what my Advance cost, and not too much more than a styrofoam with all the bells and whistles

 

[rossfam06]

I picked up 18 bantam eggs to toss in too.  My scheduled set date is May 14 (I have to work around my work travel schedule).

My schedule set date is tonight at 6 pm.Ill!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I have so much respect for you guys that put so much study into incubating your eggs. I don't mark air cells, and I don't weigh, but I haven't needed to. In the interest of the subject matter of this thread, is that another difference between expensive incubators and homemade or styrofoam, or is it just blind luck? I gather eggs for ten days or less (usually get enough within 5). I turn the incubator on, but set within an hour. All except one of my hatches have been 85%-95%. I have just never had the need to track air cell growth or weight. If I were having low hatch rates I would definitely do that to find what the issue may be, but it's never been a problem. I'm not saying this to say that Brinsea is better, or to show a total hands off POV, I'm just curious if other Brinsea users just set and hatch without all of the record keeping.
On a side note, 4 polish out and a ton of pips when I left for work this morning. Had my usual day 20 arrival last night at 9:00PM. Had 3 at 7:00AM, and my wife said #4 popped out at 8:30. After my last hatch, where the final 2 struggled to get out, I have ammended my "no open 'til day 22" position. If the incubator is half full by the time I get home tonight, I will remove the fluffies to make room for the rest. That will still be 24 hours after the first hatch.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I did briefly open the incubator this morning, but only to romove a half shell that had covered a pip

9:00PM

7:00AM

Look at those puffy little heads!! I just want to hug and kiss them George, Can I pet the polish George?? (That sounds really bad!!) I'm a big lover of Mice and Men too...lol

SC: You shock me. I think you may be dangling your feet over the hippie side of the fence. Amy is gonna double

you when she gets back.

I think that a lot of the "record keeping" that goes on, is mostly related to personality. Same thing with the folks who love to read the research. I'm a gotta read all about it kind of gal, keep copious notes regarding temp checks at the beginning of each hatch, then when I'm comfortable with bator performance, I even relax that standard. But, I have 6 thermometers in there until lock down!

I was going to say the same thing. I think some of the record keeping is pure personality for the detail and I think some of it is just an outlet to keep busy and active and involved in the hatch during that extremely long incubation period...lol

My schedule set date is tonight at 6 pm.Ill!

Good luck!!

 

[rossfam06]

Look at those puffy little heads!! I just want to hug and kiss them George, Can I pet the polish George?? (That sounds really bad!!)  I'm a big lover of Mice and Men too...lol

I was going to say the same thing. I think some of the record keeping is pure personality for the detail and I think some of it is just an outlet to keep busy and active and involved in the hatch during that extremely long incubation period...lol

Good luck!!

Thanks! I have Silver Laced, Golden Laced, and Buff Laced polish going in! I am so excited. Then I have my Americauna Polish mix in there as well.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

So far I have 6 eggs collected. I have decided that this time I am only going to do a small hatch and hope for the best. I am going to do 3 eggs from each of my girls (I have 5 layers right now), and only set 15 for this one. I have never set this small of a quantity so I am a bit nervous about my hatch rate going in especially with pullets and this being the first hatch from my girls. (Of course by the time I have the eggs I might change my mind and add another day's worth...lol After all I will need to wait for SC

). Maybe I'll add at least 2 more so the candling two are extras...lol Oh boy...

 

[scflock]

So far I have 6 eggs collected. I have decided that this time I am only going to do a small hatch and hope for the best. I am going to do 3 eggs from each of my girls (I have 5 layers right now), and only set 15 for this one. I have never set this small of a quantity so I am a bit nervous about my hatch rate going in especially with pullets and this being the first hatch from my girls. (Of course by the time I have the eggs I might change my mind and add another day's worth...lol After all I will need to wait for SC    ). Maybe I'll add at least 2 more so the candling two are extras...lol Oh boy...

I still haven't decided what I'm going to set. My bantams are laying again after their last hatch, so if I can get enough of them they would be a strong candidate

 

[lazy gardener]

I would be curious to know how long it took to perfect the design myself. If I'm not mistaken, the Octagon 20 was redesigned around 2013-14, but maybe that was just the cooldown feature (which I haven't used).
The Brinsea is definitely a high cost/capacity, but for a user like me it is the perfect solution. I am constantly hatching and selling, and I work 55+ hours/week, so I needed the comfort of knowing that my incubator could run on it's own. I have paid for the incubator with money made from the hatches, so now I am "in the black". I hope that a few Eco users will join the thread, because that unit's cost is about half of what my Advance cost, and not too much more than a styrofoam with all the bells and whistles

Can you tell me a bit about your "hatching and selling"? Do you sell day olds? Have multiple breeding pens? Sell POL pullets?