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need a quick opinion on incubators

549 views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  clearwtrbeach 
#1 ·
I have my two ABGA does who I couldn't even get sold for $125!!! healthy tested etc. So I put an ad to trade for incubator, and a guy I know of offered to trade 1 of 2 incubators.
I'm waiting to find out how old (he has 3 so 2 have not been used in 2 yrs) I know they have to be at least 3yrs. I asked him to plug them both in and make sure they are holding temp.
They are a Brinsea brand model 40 and model 190. New they are much more than I could afford (I'm only going to hatch spring chicks and ducks).
Also, I've never used incubators in my poultry or raising birds. Do you hold the eggs at room temp until you have a few or do you put them in as they are layed and mark them?
 
#2 ·
Depends on how you want to deal with the hatch. The fresher the egg when set the better chance of it developing into a chick, but the difference between laid today, set today hatches and laid today, set in a couple of day, is minimal, for most breeds of chickens and ducks. But, on the flip side, if you set daily, you have hatches daily and need to be babysitting the incubator daily and cleaning the incubator is next to impossible, as there is always something in there incubating. To collect eggs to set all together, collect them as normal and then keep them in a cool place, not the refridgator, but cool (basement, somewhere around 50 - 70 ish) and turn them daily/regularly to keep them from sticking to the shell and set them within a week to a week and a half for best hatching. Eggs can be viable for longer, but the numbers that hatch starts to drop off after a week to a week and a half.
 
#3 ·
I don't have either of those incubators but I do have a Brinsea Octagon 20, which I think is similar to the 40. I have had great hatch rates with mine and it's really easy. You'll want to put all the eggs in at once because you'll have to have the eggs on lock down when they get close to hatching. Which would mean that your eggs that aren't ready wouldn't be getting turned and they might stick.
 
#5 ·
We have a cabinet. Love it. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

We set eggs once a week, in spurts. I have two different colored pencils I like to use. Blue and red. On each egg, I mark in red on the collection date (and hen if I know), and put it in a draft free room in an egg carton. Every Sunday starting January 1st, we set whichever eggs we want to hatch out in a tray and mark a bigger bolder date on the flip side in blue. We don't have time for incubation lock down. We clean the incubator once a month. Full wipe down. At this time we gather storage totes and towels (fresh and warm from the dryer) and place the trays in the totes, and seal the lid until done. Eggs can be left alone safely in room temp for up to 6 hours. So no worries about the cleaning. At the end of the season we sterilize the incubator. We stop hatching June 1st every year as well.

Hatch hundreds of chicks a year.
 
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