Wanting to incubate eggs. Seeking advice

[TheChips]

Hello here!

I am wanting to do my first hatching this season. And am looking for advice, reviews and helpful links or any helpful books you can suggest that I can purchase online. I looked around the site but havent found a Incubating 101 thread. I only want to try to have around 6 eggs incubating.


I am deciding with either a 6 egg incubator OR one of these two.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/farm-innovators-pro-series-circulated-air-incubator
$119

or

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/little-giantreg;-still-air-incubator?cm_vc=-10005
$39.99

I look forward to your response thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

[clankeyes]

I had found through this site : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008HVM5SY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

seems a lot of people like it.

 

[onebigglo1]

I have the Little Giant (I think that's the name) from TSC. I do have the egg turner in mine and seriously suggest getting one unless you are home all the time and can remember to turn the eggs 2-3 times a day. I would also suggest setting more than 6 eggs so you have a better hatch rate. I had 28 eggs set and only hatched 12 successfully. I have learned to cut a sponge and insert it in the water channels in the bottom. This will help keep the humidity up and you won't have to add water as often. I also went to Wal-mart and bought a digital hydrometer for about $8. I use it and the other thermometer that comes with the incubator. Turn your incubator on a couple days before you set your eggs to regulate the temp. You want it to stay between 99-100. Read the book thoroughly before you start, it is a big help telling you where and how to find a place to set it up. Once I set my eggs, I put masking tape around 3 sides to seal the crack where the top meets the bottom to keep the moister from evaporating so much. I decided not to candle because I didn't want my eggs cooling down so much because of the amount of eggs I had set and my eggs started hatching early this time. Just remember the less you mess with them, the better off they will be.
It's kind of like a slow cooker, set it and forget it. When the eggs start hatching, I suggest taking the chicks out and put them where ever you have the heating lamp, otherwise they can stumble around and brake the shells on other eggs and kill the chicks that aren't ready to hatch yet. I had this happen to 4 of my last eggs because I wasn't there when they hatched. Also make sure you get the humidity up to at least 70% when you put them on lock down on day 18 or some of them may get shrink wrapped and die. It is very sad to find a fully developed chick dead in the egg but it does happen. I hope this will help you out a little. Good luck and don't give up if you aren't successful the first time.
Just remember, even a hen usually doesn't get all her eggs to hatch either.

 

[NYREDS]

Many people are critical of the small, styrofoam incubators [Hovabator, Little Giant, etc] but essentially all incubators function in the same way. They are simply heated boxes with a thermostat to control temperature. Some are more sophisticated than others eg: electronoc thermostats, automatic egg turners, etc but they all function in the same way.
I've seen several posts claiming the inexpensive styrofoam incubators don't work to hatch eggs but I assure you that if you follow the manufacturer's directions & do some homework on basic hatching principles they will work as well as more expensive models. I have 2 large cabinet type incubators now but for years used nothing but the styrofoam models. I only switched because I got the cabinet incubators very cheap at an auction & I hatch large numbers of chicks each year.
At one point I had 8 of the inexpensive styrofoam incubators: some with circulating fans, some without. I never used automatic turners becasue the greatly reduce the number of eggs the incubators will hold. I hatched hundreds if not thousands of chicks in the styrofoam incubators. I think they're a perfctly accepable way to start. Why spend hundreds of dollars if you don't need to, especially when just starting out. Lets face it, many people start out interested in poultry only to lose interest after a short time. One of the cabinet incubators I bought was used just once before I bought it. It then sat in a basement for years before being taken to an auction where I bought it for $65.
If you want to buy a more expensive incubator go ahead but don't skip the inexpensive styrofoam model because people sy they don't work Used properly they work just fine.

 

[TheChips]

Thank you for all the replies, its much appreciated!