The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: comesmile on August 02, 2015, 05:05:29 pm
-
Hi,
Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced incubator for about 24 eggs, please
I have looked at several and as soon as I read any comments they all seem to have various problems, the main one being the failure of the incubator to maintain the correct temperature, which is obviously no good at all.
Any advice gladly received.
Peter
-
Im very happy with my Brinsea Octagon 20. it takes 20 chicken eggs and has automatic turning. I haven't had any temperature problems with it.
The one up from mine ( the Advance) has digital temperature and humidity measuring, which sounds good but I cant say ive missed having that function.
mine was £139 from Screwfix but that might have been a special price early this year ( I got it courtesy of a heads-up on this forum actually!)
-
Loved my Corti automatic - high hatches every time - only thing I added was a separate hygrometer at the level of the eggs.
Got mine from incubator shop
-
I use the Brinsea Octagon Advance, and it's superb.
Regardless of which brand or model you choose I would buy a seperate thermometer and hygrometer just to double check the readings on the incubator.
-
We use semi-automatics, that is you have to turn the eggs by pulling or pushing a lever. They cost about €170 for a 24 egg unit. Water is added into troughs which is great, because you forget about the machine humidity readings and concentrate on the real issue- development of the air sac. Eggs from different breeds have different porosity so one humidity setting doesn't suit all. Ours are all run dry for 8 days then candled- small air sac and we can't do anything but keep running dry, but a large one and we will add water to one of the troughs to reduce water loss from the egg. Our hatch rates are over 90%, simply because we don't mix breeds and focus on the air sac development.