Good morning, Hes&Shes! (Did any of you hear that some university has proposed going totally gender neutral with "Ze,'' or some such non-sense?)
I have so far just been listening to all the hatching talk and have not offered any input. I am trying to decide to which camp/color I fall. I live in Alabama, which affects my practices. We are hot and humid from mid-spring through late, late, fall. I try to only hatch in the early spring (many of you would call it mid winter) so that 1) flies will not be an issue, and 2) so that my birds will hit their peak about the same time as the fall shows start, and 3) because if I didn't, I would have no major chicken related activity going on during that time.
My incubator is a Sportsman 1500 with 6 plastic egg trays (all pictured below) and I have 4 assorted brand styro-bators that I use for hatching. I know, many of you are saying, "That's nice and all, but it's too much money for me to spend for no more hatching than I do." I will offer some thoughts on this.
I started with a Hova bator, which, most of you know, required a lot of monitoring, tweaking, and worry. I spent hours and hours focused on the temperature, humidity, egg positioning, bacteria growth, cleaning, disinfecting, etc. An auto-turner helped make it more convenient, but also added some issues. I struggled with it through several hatches and started to consider buying a better one. I looked at the Brinsea, newer Hovabators, several other brands. I was convinced that digital was the way to go for accuracy and ease. I found that if the price was something I considered acceptable, the maximum capacity was lower than I wanted, and if it had the ability to hatch the number of eggs I wanted to hatch, the price was "too high" for my liking. Besides that, I had been reading a lot of posts by people who had the better ones, and it seemed to me that they caused about as much work and worry as mine did.
I turned to the old timers that have been raising chickens for decades. Every one of them that I talked to said to go with a cabinet incubator, so I started looking into those. I looked at redwoods, new, used, homemade, small, large, etc., and finally narrowed it down to the Sportsman and the Dickey. I think I would have been happy with either of those, and the Dickey was slightly less, but I went with the Sportsman (right at $800 including trays and shipping) based on the reviews of GQF's customer service. That's not to say that Dickey's customer service would have been bad, but people didn't brag on it as much, and GQF's good reputation goes back for years. I will admit, sending that money stung a bit, and my DH would have flipped if I had discussed it with him, but I bit the bullet and proceeded boldly.
I unpacked it, did some minor assembly, set it in my laundry room, and plugged it in. I watched it for a week and it held steady at 100.0 degrees and 38% RH. I set a full tray of barnyard eggs and monitored the on-board temp and RH read-out. The temp never fluctuated more than .3 of a degree and the humidity eventually dropped to 23% so I added water to the tray. That made it come up to 48% RH and it slowly came down from there. At day 18, I was trying to figure out how to stop turning them and decided to move them to the styro-bator for hatching. It meant that there was no mess to clean up in the incubator, and I only had to worry about the temp in the styro-bator for a few days. I heard peeping and saw pips on day 19 and on day 20, 43 of the first 48 eggs hatched, five were not fertile.
Since then, I have gathered up two and a half more styro-bators that I use for hatching and have a pretty efficient system. Early in the season, when I am not getting many eggs, I set eggs once a week. I put the eggs from the bottom shelf in the hatcher, move the rest of the trays down one shelf, and add the new eggs to the top self. I don't have to add water because opening the door once a week adds enough humidity. I don't candle until I move them to the hatcher and only then so I can pull the clears, obvious quitters, and any that don't pass a quick sniff test. The tray on the bottom is moved to the hatcher on day 18 or so. I clean the hatchers as they are emptied and rotate them so I don't get layover bacteria.
The worst thing I can say about it is that I sometimes forget that it is time to move the eggs to one of the styro-bators and have chicks that hatch and fall to the bottom! It is truly as close as can get to "set it, and forget it." I don't miss that $800 at all!
That is awesome and you're going to have a lot of people drooling....lol If I had decent quality purebreds and was hatching to sell chicks and had a market for them, I would definitely want something like this.
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That is awesome and you're going to have a lot of people drooling....lol If I had decent quality purebreds and was hatching to sell chicks and had a market for them, I would definitely want something like this.
Thank you, but understand that I am not a large scale or profitable chicken operation, at all! I raise a rare breed for the joy of seeing them improve. I don't regularly sell chicks, only occasionally, and they are mostly the lesser quality birds, Easter Eggers and such.
I just love that it is so easy and worth it on the grounds that my time is valuable to me and my stress level is so much lower. It cost less than a daily anti-anxiety Rx and is less dangerous, and more effective. It was also less than a vacation and lasts longer. If you do decide to get one, it can pay for itself in chick sales and hatching for other people (there's room for that!) The resale on them is very good, too, in case you fear you may not stay in chickens.
I highly recommend it for everyone that hatches more than once or twice in a year. I know the joy it brings me and want that for all my chicken loving buddies!
Thank you, but understand that I am not a large scale or profitable chicken operation, at all! I raise a rare breed for the joy of seeing them improve. I don't regularly sell chicks, only occasionally, and they are mostly the lesser quality birds, Easter Eggers and such.
I just love that it is so easy and worth it on the grounds that my time is valuable to me and my stress level is so much lower. It cost less than a daily anti-anxiety Rx and is less dangerous, and more effective. It was also less than a vacation and lasts longer. If you do decide to get one, it can pay for itself in chick sales and hatching for other people (there's room for that!) The resale on them is very good, too, in case you fear you may not stay in chickens.
I highly recommend it for everyone that hatches more than once or twice in a year. I know the joy it brings me and want that for all my chicken loving buddies! :cd
Omg, I would LOVE to have something like that!! But as soon as I showed my husband the price tag he'd tell me I must have fallen and bumped my head, lol. I can see how it could definitely pay for itself but I wouldn't possibly be able to come up with $800 to get 1 without my husband's help and I wouldn't be able to convince him that it would be a good investment. Now if I could find a used 1... I might be able to get 1 of those... I think I need to look at some classified ads, lol. Craigslist here I come!
I've set my 12 Welsummer eggs, the temp is steady at 101° at the top of the eggs, (read from a digital thermometer from Incubator Warehouse as well as an anolog meat thermometer, hey, if it works use it, lol) my humidity is right around 48 to 50% so I'm ok with that. There's not much I can do about it, the humidity in my house is 44% so I think this is right about my minimum, lol. I'm terrified that my temp is off, I've tried so many thermos and all of them have given me widely varying temps except for these 2 and I figured the Incubator Warehouse 1 would be pretty accurate and I figured the anolog 1 would be pretty close too and they match dead on so I'm going with those. But in the back of my head I keep saying what if... what if. I'm terrified that the temp is off by some horrible amount, but that's me, I'm a constant worrier. The only reason I'm so worried is the digital thermo has a hygrometer also and that's the 1 that was reading 30% or less humidity when it was really 67%, so I hope the temp is right. I've ordered a new 1 and it should be here in a couple days so I'll know for sure then.
Amy, I'm sure I'll be asking many, many ?'s in the next couple of weeks, you'll probably get sick of me by the time hatching day comes, so if I get on your nerves feel free to give me a couple of these
I've set my 12 Welsummer eggs, the temp is steady at 101° at the top of the eggs, (read from a digital thermometer from Incubator Warehouse as well as an anolog meat thermometer, hey, if it works use it, lol) my humidity is right around 48 to 50% so I'm ok with that. There's not much I can do about it, the humidity in my house is 44% so I think this is right about my minimum, lol. I'm terrified that my temp is off, I've tried so many thermos and all of them have given me widely varying temps except for these 2 and I figured the Incubator Warehouse 1 would be pretty accurate and I figured the anolog 1 would be pretty close too and they match dead on so I'm going with those. But in the back of my head I keep saying what if... what if. I'm terrified that the temp is off by some horrible amount, but that's me, I'm a constant worrier. The only reason I'm so worried is the digital thermo has a hygrometer also and that's the 1 that was reading 30% or less humidity when it was really 67%, so I hope the temp is right. I've ordered a new 1 and it should be here in a couple days so I'll know for sure then.
Thank you, but understand that I am not a large scale or profitable chicken operation, at all! I raise a rare breed for the joy of seeing them improve. I don't regularly sell chicks, only occasionally, and they are mostly the lesser quality birds, Easter Eggers and such.
I just love that it is so easy and worth it on the grounds that my time is valuable to me and my stress level is so much lower. It cost less than a daily anti-anxiety Rx and is less dangerous, and more effective. It was also less than a vacation and lasts longer. If you do decide to get one, it can pay for itself in chick sales and hatching for other people (there's room for that!) The resale on them is very good, too, in case you fear you may not stay in chickens.
I highly recommend it for everyone that hatches more than once or twice in a year. I know the joy it brings me and want that for all my chicken loving buddies! :cd
Thanks for telling us a little about yourself and your hatching practices. I also just hatch for the pleasure of watching my own birds, I give away some eggs to friends, and I love hatching! I started with a Chinese Janoel knockoff 48 and ran a few hatches through it. The last one, I had some temp issues, so I started looking for a Brinsea. Found an Advance 20 EX on CL with turner and humidity pump (which I may or may not need). It had been used only once in a classroom, so I bought it. I have 32 bantam eggs in it now, on day 14. I considered cabinets, but figured I'd definitely end up with wayyyyy too many birds! But I think I'm already having that trouble anyway!
Amy, I'm sure I'll be asking many, many ?'s in the next couple of weeks, you'll probably get sick of me by the time hatching day comes, so if I get on your nerves feel free to give me a couple of these
Amy, I'm sure I'll be asking many, many ?'s in the next couple of weeks, you'll probably get sick of me by the time hatching day comes, so if I get on your nerves feel free to give me a couple of these
I for one, am happy you are here. We have your back, so don't be shy! (not that you have been anyway lol) you're gonna have a great hatch and I'm excited to see those Welsummers!!
