Styrofoam Incubators Club

[danielkbrantley]

Quick question: I'm borrowing a friend's Little Giant. It seemed to hold a steady temp until last night, when I realized a still-air machine should sit at around 102 instead of 99.5. I adjusted it and it got there pretty fast, no problem. Then this morning, the temp was 100. I suspect it will get back to 102 sometime soon. Hopefully.

Anyway, will a two-degree ebb and flow be a big deal? I'm not incubating eggs right now. Just trying to learn the machine and make sure it can hold a temp adequately.

 

[Intheswamp]

Quick question: I'm borrowing a friend's Little Giant. It seemed to hold a steady temp until last night, when I realized a still-air machine should sit at around 102 instead of 99.5. I adjusted it and it got there pretty fast, no problem. Then this morning, the temp was 100. I suspect it will get back to 102 sometime soon. Hopefully.

Anyway, will a two-degree ebb and flow be a big deal? I'm not incubating eggs right now. Just trying to learn the machine and make sure it can hold a temp adequately.

A heat-sink in the incubator would help with stabilizing the temperature...bottle of water, a few large rocks, etc.,. If you were to use a bottle, you could use a baby bottle and run the probe of a thermometer into the bottle through the nipple to get an internal "egg" temperature. I would still have an air thermometer in there, too,

I'll let someone else comment on the 2-degree variance.

 

[danielkbrantley]

A heat-sink in the incubator would help with stabilizing the temperature...bottle of water, a few large rocks, etc.,. If you were to use a bottle, you could use a baby bottle and run the probe of a thermometer into the bottle through the nipple to get an internal "egg" temperature. I would still have an air thermometer in there, too,

I'll let someone else comment on the 2-degree variance.

Ah! Think I'll snag a few rocks from the yard, clean 'em up, and give them a try. Thanks!

 

[old mcdanold]

two degrees shouldn't matter as long as don't drop below 95

 

[Duck Drover]

I think we may have lost our hatch of duck eggs that got too low when my daughter adjusted the thermostat during hot weather to keep them from getting too hot. I think it was only as low as 97 or 98 so I had hoped they would just hatch late but they were due on Monday and today is Friday. I will have to check them tonight if we don't have any pips. It is also possible she miscalculated the due date since I have done that after setting chicken eggs and then duck eggs right afterwards. I write the set date and the due date on the eggs so I can double check and I have had the wrong due date more than once.

 

[cscigu]

This has probably been covered oodles of times before, but I'm just experiencing something, so I'll run over it again.

Have many of you added a fan to your Hovabator or similar styrofoam incubator? What changes did you notice?

I started my eggs yesterday after they arrived from another BYC member. I had the incubator running a couple days in advance, to have it all ready. The fan wasn't due till today, but I elected to go ahead and start them yesterday. but the fan didn't arrive until today, So, I quickly added the fan, a low speed Amazon special that I saw others had used for the same purpose. I had done a little Okie engineering, and have the thing in installed just like the real Hovabator fan install I saw on Youtube.

The incubator had been running at the right setting for two straight days, without having to adjust anything. After adding the fan, the temp soon rose a couple degrees, and held there. I've adjusted down, but was surprised a bit.

Have you noticed a better temp situation, or had noticeably improved hatches? My hatches have been only fair recently. Hoping this will help.

 

[MeepBeep]

The fan evens out the temp, the few degree rise you saw was probably just the hot and cold spots evening out at you thermometer location...

Also to confirm you fan 'pulls' up across the eggs and is not blowing down at them right?

 

[cscigu]

The fan evens out the temp, the few degree rise you saw was probably just the hot and cold spots evening out at you thermometer location...

Also to confirm you fan 'pulls' up across the eggs and is not blowing down at them right?

Yep, I have it blowing up, and rigged a small gap of "dead space" and a cover to keep it from being right against the top of the incubator. So the air circulates up, and around the perimeter of the incubator.

I'd always expected that there were bad hot and cold areas with the still air setup.

 

[MeepBeep]

I'd always expected that there were bad hot and cold areas with the still air setup.

In addition to cold and hot spots, still air also has a vertical gradient temperature difference, the air on the bottom of the incubator can literally be several degrees cooler than the top...

 

[cscigu]

I've been checking the thing every 15-20 minutes, and the temp keeps increasing. I suspect some heat was stored in the box, but mostly, the heating element is much more efficient with the fan circulating. That is, with fan, the element heats up, then that is quickly moved around the incubator. Without the fan, the element had to heat for a much longer cycle to move that heat around the incubator. A conduction thing. So, my old setting was for that longer cycle, and now it is causing the overheating problem.

Hopefully this won't take too long to regulate. Its always something. Probably should have either waited on starting the eggs, or waited on adding the fan....Then I start thinking of an egg under a hen in a hot/cold wet/dry/ drafty/muggy henhouse, and feel like the anguish is misplaced.

Trial and error.