The 5th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[DCchicken]

I'm sorry you had an issue. I never have, been using for several years.

I have two Brinsea 20 Eco incubators. Both have constantly fluctuating temps. Maybe they had production problems this year? Either way, they have ruined my trust in them. And I even use their EcoGlow brooders. Now I am going to question using those. At least with the EcoGlows, the chicks can run out rather than be baked.

I am buying a GQF Sportsman cabinet or a few more Rcoms. I have never heard of someone telling me either cooked their eggs in those two brands.

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

Hour many eggs should a LG without a tuner hold?

 

[carriebain]

Can I still participate even tho it is a co-hatch? My friend is incubating at her house do to my marek's outbreak.

If so, we set 48 eggs today at noon. I will post a picture on fri when I go to her house to candle.

 

[ronott1]

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday with a Brinsea 20 Eco. Now I know why the last eggs in it did not develop. I just thought it was because they were shipped eggs.

No more Brinsea incubators for me. Too unreliable.

Brinsea support is very good. Did you send it in to se what was wrong?

My Octagon 40 is fantastic.

edited: I see it just happened.

It is so sad!

 

[angelobutter]

I have three brinsea 20s and just this year one stopped working, It will say 88 degrees so i turn the knob like, a hair and it is up to 110. and i did this several times (with no eggs thankfully) and could not get it to be anywhere from 88 to less than 110. the other two are great.
however my Rcom50 just temped high, it was 102 by a glass thermometer, the same glass thermometer read just a hair under 100 in my Rcom20, so I wound up turning my Rcom50 down to 36. c (it is preset at 37.5) to make it actually the right temp. so long story short, in my opinion, always double check even if they are usually or are supposed to be reliable.

 

[lcvedder]

I want to join in! I set 12 barnyard mixes Friday at 10pm. I hope it's not too late for me to participate...
6 are Marans x Easter Egger
3 are Easter Egger x Easter Egger
3 are Black Australporp x Easter Egger

 

[JackieandChicks]

Was it a still air or a forced air incubator? I would think the tilting the incubator wouldn't work with a still air, because of the air stratification. The only thing I can think of for forced air would be that maybe the thermostat mechanism doesn't adjust properly if it is tilted?

It's a Farmer's Innovator still air. It's stabilized again. Maybe it did that before and since I was at work I didn't catch it? I'll see what happens with these eggs at day 10. I'm not tilting it a lot, and someone else on the MI list hatches out tilting back and forth her eggs so she doesn't open the incubator. I'm going to tilt it back the other way now to see if it fluctuates again; if so I'll make it level and go from there.

The minute I caught it rising, I did open and manually rotated the eggs by rolling them like I would think a hen does with the hope it would even out the temps in the eggs themselves. And had a question - how do chickens hatch in hotter climates like, say, Arizona where it gets over 100 plus degrees?

 

[mlm Mike]

I have two Brinsea 20 Eco incubators. Both have constantly fluctuating temps. Maybe they had production problems this year? Either way, they have ruined my trust in them. And I even use their EcoGlow brooders. Now I am going to question using those. At least with the EcoGlows, the chicks can run out rather than be baked.

I am buying a GQF Sportsman cabinet or a few more Rcoms. I have never heard of someone telling me either cooked their eggs in those two brands.

If they are new, maybe you can get a refund still? I certainly don't blame you for not trusting their products.

Hour many eggs should a LG without a tuner hold?

Dangerous question. Do you mean for a reasonable person or are you considering stacking eggs?

Can I still participate even tho it is a co-hatch? My friend is incubating at her house do to my marek's outbreak.

If so, we set 48 eggs today at noon. I will post a picture on fri when I go to her house to candle.

Yes, I think we all understand your situation.

I have three brinsea 20s and just this year one stopped working, It will say 88 degrees so i turn the knob like, a hair and it is up to 110. and i did this several times (with no eggs thankfully) and could not get it to be anywhere from 88 to less than 110. the other two are great.
however my Rcom50 just temped high, it was 102 by a glass thermometer, the same glass thermometer read just a hair under 100 in my Rcom20, so I wound up turning my Rcom50 down to 36. c (it is preset at 37.5) to make it actually the right temp. so long story short, in my opinion, always double check even if they are usually or are supposed to be reliable.

Knobs, are they older incubators?. Mine are digital with buttons to press. Yes, double checking is a good idea.

I want to join in! I set 12 barnyard mixes Friday at 10pm. I hope it's not too late for me to participate...
6 are Marans x Easter Egger
3 are Easter Egger x Easter Egger
3 are Black Australporp x Easter Egger

Welcome!

 

[LBKS]

It's a Farmer's Innovator still air. It's stabilized again. Maybe it did that before and since I was at work I didn't catch it? I'll see what happens with these eggs at day 10. I'm not tilting it a lot, and someone else on the MI list hatches out tilting back and forth her eggs so she doesn't open the incubator. I'm going to tilt it back the other way now to see if it fluctuates again; if so I'll make it level and go from there.

The minute I caught it rising, I did open and manually rotated the eggs by rolling them like I would think a hen does with the hope it would even out the temps in the eggs themselves. And had a question - how do chickens hatch in hotter climates like, say, Arizona where it gets over 100 plus degrees?

I have that same one as a hatcher and two forced air as incubators -- I've noticed that the forced air ones can vary as much as two degrees without moving the nob and without room temperature rising, it seems to be a bit worse in the still air I have. I lost several expensive egg hatches before I broke down and got a temperature/humidity recorder to sort out the issue. I ended up setting it to stay most of the time at 98.5 degrees in the forced air incubators, knowing it will go up as high as 100.5 periodically. Before I turned it down to that I would have eggs killed by spikes. I've had more kills by the still air than the forced air, so I keep it lower aiming at 96 degrees at egg level, which seems to work for hatching.

Take it with a grain of salt, that just happens to be what works well in mine in case it helps you. If you can manage to get one, any temperature/humidity recorder is a godsend. It made it so much easier to pinpoint issues and test fixes - like how opening the closet door about two inches while I'm gone at work can prevent daytime temperature spikes in my incubators.

 

[DCchicken]

Brinsea support is very good. Did you send it in to sew what was wrong?

My Octagon 40 is fantastic.

I haven't yet as the last batch that also didn't develop (and now I know why), just finished a few days ago. So I had just assumed that the problem was with shipped eggs. I wonder how many times the USPS gets blamed when in reality it was the incubator causing the problem.

The lesson to be learned here: The cheap comes out expensive. I was just so tempted by the low cost of the Brinsea incubators.

Oh and lesson number two: If using a cheap incubator for this hatch-a-long, check the temp every 15 minutes.