I bought a Farm Innovators incubator recently, thinking it was a good deal as it came with an egg turner. I hatched 4 of 12 copper maran/orpington eggs and 0 of 10 silkie eggs. A few eggs were infertile, maybe 4 eggs. There were a lot of early deaths. I had Muscovy eggs in it too and about half of them died early (I put them in a different incubator). I spoke to someone I was buying hatching eggs from a few days ago, he also bought a Farm Innovators incubator. This person is an experienced hatcher (I am not.) He had a low hatch rate with it and had to assist many of the chicks that did hatch. He said his Kebonnix 12 egg incubator always gives him 100% hatch rate if they are fertile. He uses it for test hatches and for custom hatching. After doing some research (mostly using this website), it appears the Kebonnix and Maticoopx are supposedly good Chinese incubators. However, the Farm Innovators is like all the rest of the Chinese incubators you see on Amazon. They fluctuate in temperature and produce poor results. I bought a digital Hovabator (2370) from the local feed store. ($152+tax Canadian, cheaper than on Amazon). I put the egg turner in the Hovabator plus some extra in the empty space. It's been less than a week so I don't know how well it works, but it seems to keep the temperature constant. The heat cycles on and off every few seconds. The Farm Innovators incubator seems to fluctuate in temperature a lot. One issue with it maybe be that the heater is too powerful and the fan isn't powerful enough. It comes up to temperature very quickly. It's also much quieter than the Hovabator I purchased recently. The Hovabator fan is very loud (it whines too). After the Farm Innovators cooked most of my eggs, I wanted to throw it in the trash. I thought about giving it away, but I wouldn't want to put that on someone else. I am using the Innovator Farms right now because I had to clean one of my incubators. (I am doing a staggered hatches and I bought too many eggs.) I have a Fisherbrand Traceable clock/humidity/temperature I am using monitor the temperature and humidity. (They use them at the hospital and throw them away after their calibration expires). I am monitoring it closely.
Hello
I use the little giant deluxe, which is going to be similar to your farm innovator in style, and I absolutely love it, but it isn't perfect.
Sometime ago, I purchased 2 Govee wireless transmitting thermometer/hygro meter. And it was 2 because there was a special deal on
Amazon. Anyway, at the time I had a nurture right 360 and was experiencing some bad hatch rates - from the beginning with that thing.
The beauty of the Govee is #1 it is prized for its accuracy and factory calibration. And #2 it uploads data to your phone 24/7. You can check down to the minute what temp is was and when. As we speak I have quail hatching - attached is a screen shot of the hatch froM the Govee app. You'll see how well my incubator held temp for the entire hatch. There is one drop, and that is my one and only candling. (Celadon quail eggs are super dark and hard to see into. Attempting to candle after then is pointless)
It will do this same thing for the humidity.
Anyway, back to the nurture right. I ended up sticking both govees in there and found that the units temp reading is off (which is standard for hobby bators) but more concerning were the cold spots. The NR turns every hour, and you'd see these hour long peaks and plateaus on the whole graph, and the difference was +\- 5 degrees F. I wasn't suprised my eggs weren't hatching.
NOTE: I did recently just get a keebonix incubator for the same reason, fun or test hatches. It also hatched its first chicks today, and it was 6 out of 7 on a bantam batch. So I wouldn't recommend just yet, but im impressed with it.
Moral of the story(ies) - if you have a box, that can hold the right climate in order to hatch whatever eggs you have, you turn the eggs, and the eggs are fertile - those eggs are going to hatch.
The Govee or other monitoring devices will eliminate all this uncertainty you have about your incubator. I recommend the 2 pack for calibration purposes, and so you can run the machine for say 5 days and move the monitors around within them. See if you have hot or cold spots, or if any spot doesn't get as much circulation, etc.
Govee Hygrometer Thermometer H5075, Bluetooth Indoor Room Temperature Monitor Greenhouse Thermometer with Remote App Control, Notification Alerts, 2 Years Data Storage Export,LCD
https://a.co/d/iLSWoQt
