Which incubator to use in the uk?

[penkwolf]

Hi all,

I used to incubate eggs and had success using a polystyrene made one i got off ebay.

Anyway i want to start again but there are so many on the market its hard to know whats best.

I want it to ideally hold around 24 eggs and automaticaly turn the eggs.

Has anyone had experience using these, i am struggling to find reviews:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24pcs-Au...-/303872730191?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

Or if you can recommend any that would be great.

Thanks

 

[penkwolf]

Just an update, i am getting 24 hatching eggs a week on saturday so will them update everyone with how its going.

 

[Mellowmalt]

als has summed up that incubator perfectly for you.

If you want something more reliable it would be 5 times as expensive:

https://www.theincubatorshop.co.uk/...-king-suro-20-incubator-24-egg-incubator.html

 

[als77]

The incubator arrived today! That was quick.

I set it up about about lunch time. I am a bit worried that the clear plastic top doesnt connect properly with the bottom, does yours?

Ive put it in the polystyrene casing and set it up to see how it runs. My humidity is staying in the 50s which is good i think but the temp is fluctuating between 37.7 to 37.9.

I have ordered some thermostats that come tomorrow to put in it. What is the allowance for temp differences once i put my eggs in?

Im also gna do a fake lockdown ina a bit to see if it will hold high humidity because the plastic not fitting perfect. Did you just keep putting water in to get it up? Theres not to much i can put in is there?

Cheers!

My plastic lid seems to be a very snug fit (maybe even too snug?). Probably not an issue if is it not very snug (unless we're talking several mm).

The polystyrene casing made things worse for me, but it supposed to help (and is said to help with other bators!), so just experiment with and without it (+with and without a sweater covering the lid) once you get the extra thermometers

Temperature fluctuations of 0.2C is nothing to worry about. Even 0.5C is probably perfectly fine. I believe mine was acceptable stable (within 0.5C total fluctuations, mainly on the downside), but my main issue was that the midle two rows turned out to be a lot colder than the two other rows (the bator showed 37.5C, and that was true for the sensor and the two outer rows, but the midle two rows were in reality 35.5-36.5C...)

The "goal" is 37.5C (on top of the eggs), but we have some wiggling room; there was one article (for quail I believe, but probably same for most birds) which showed that 36.7C worked (with a small 2% reduction in hatch rate), and 38.3C also was doable (but with a 10% loss). That's throughout incubation, so fluctuations of say 0.5C around 37.5C should be perfectly fine. If your temperature is too high they'll hatch early, and if it's too low they will hatch late. From what I understand too high is worse than too low (but I am a beginner), so if you are worried/uncertain then going on the lower side is probably better.

Water; Yes, you can put too much! (ignore what the instruction manual says!) It is surface area (plus what happens to be the humidity in your area at the time) that controls humidity, so too much surface area and your humidity will skyrocket, BUT my model (I don't know if you have the exact same one or if different sellers can have slight variations) has four trays. I assume you also got a bottle with the bator? It has markings; 50/100/150 I believe. This is NOT ml, but just some random scale (I found out when I was trying to add 25 and used ml). In my bator the first tray fits 150 of this whatever scale (so from say 50-150 you will have the same humidity). If you fill more it will overflow into the second tray which holds another 250 (so from 150 to 400 you will have a higher humidity), then that will overflow to the third which holds another 300 (and even higher humidity), which overflows into the forth for another 300 (a total of 1000 whatevers). If the forth one overflows it will drain through the four holes in the bottom of the bator, but your humidity will probably be way too high long before that.

For me (which might be very different than what works for you, I don't know) I used one tray to get to 50%-ish, and then another tray for lock-down (but the second one might have been to much - I don't really know since I messed up at this stage). If your test-run shows that this gives you too much humidity you can either cover part of the second tray (i.e reduce surface area), or (maybe easier) add wet sponges/papertowel to the bator (i.e increase surface area). Or, worst/lazy case (before lockdown) you might consider letting the bator run without water a few hours to compensate if your humidity has been on the high side. For humidity it is the average that counts (until lockdown that is). It is temperature that we really have to "worry" about (but we do have some wiggling room, and it is also the temperature of the egg itself that matters so short-term fluctuations is totaly fine).

This sounds a lot more complicated than it really is though, so I hope I'm not scaring/overwhelming you with too much information...

 

[Orchid11]

Hi all,

I used to incubate eggs and had success using a polystyrene made one i got off ebay.

Anyway i want to start again but there are so many on the market its hard to know whats best.

I want it to ideally hold around 24 eggs and automaticaly turn the eggs.

Has anyone had experience using these, i am struggling to find reviews:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24pcs-Au...-/303872730191?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

Or if you can recommend any that would be great.

Thanks

Brinsea is pretty good. 9/10 chicks hatched but I did have an issue measuring humidity and it is more on the expensive side.

 

[Mellowmalt]

little guy made it

 

[penkwolf]

I have 2 on top of my eggs (across top 2 rows) then i have 2 in the turners on the bottom 2 rows. I cant fit these ones on top of the eggs cz these are the bigger eggs and it would push the plastic off when turning

 

[Mellowmalt]

Well it looks like penk has left this thread and since I don't feel like chatting by myself I will conclude that it is tricky to get good results with the incubator shown at the beginning of ths thread. I tried 3 times myself and could not stabilize temps or humdity.

The other incubator I bought off Amazon is better but has too many flaws to use as is and I had to make some major adjustments and am now finally at 100% on day 10.

Would I do it again? No way. Better to spend over £100 and get one from from the incubatorshop

Before Brexit it was possible to buy a Nurture Right 360 here in the UK but those days are over now.

 

[als77]

Congratulations

 

[als77]

I just hatched with that HORRIBLE thing, BUT there are workarounds so that you can make it work

1) It has major temperature fluctuations INSIDE the bator, expect at least 1.1-1.4C (that's in my living room, chucked behind some chairs). If you follow the instructions and put it in the styrofoam, expect DOUBLE, i.e 2.2-2.8C! See picture... My work-around; do NOT use the styrofoam, but put a sweater on top of the lid (or maybe better; let the warmer bottom-left corner be uncovered). I were eventually able to get the temperature difference inside it to 0.5C (and slightly below) which I think is rather acceptable

2) The grid/floor for lock-down has WAY to big holes. You have to use a liner of some sort, but BE WARE of the mesh you use as it likely will block (destroy) airflow (messing up both temperature and humidity). I might have lost 5 eggs to this issue (excluding 2 assists and 1-2 too-late-to-assist)

3) It's not very safe for small birds. Chicken chicks might be ok, but not quail. See picture of my little fellow who nose-dove into the corner and got stuck. Luckily I watched it happen and were able to pull it out (not easy, it was really stuck!)

PS. The LED-light isn't strong enough to candle quail. Not sure if it will work with white eggs, but it didn't even catch obvious "lightbulbs"

Haven't cleaned it jet. Seems to be a bit tricky (i.e unscrew + loosen watering hose ++)
Also "difficult" to remove excess water

Positives;
1) You can refill the water without opening
2) It has four trays for water (unlike most others with 2-3), but those might still be a bit too big
3) Price (although it isn't really worth it - at least if you don't know how to cope with its faults, which you now hopefully are)