[Womble]

Wow, the Brinsea product range certainly is confusing! For example, the 'semi auto turning' models don't have a cradle - you have to rock them from side to side on their octagon shaped bits, which sounds distinctly manual to me!

The Octagon 20 range thus appears to be:

1a) Octagon Eco, with automatic temperature control, but a manual glass thermometer for checking it. No auto turn cradle - you just rock the whole thing back and forth on its octagon bits. No humidity measurement. Price roughly £125.

1b) Octagon Eco same as above, but with cradle, roughly £175

2a) Octagon Advance - Auto temp. control plus digital readout, plus control buttons to change the temperature. Humidity display in %. No turning cradle, Roughly £175

2b) Octagon Advance, with cradle, £200 ish.

3) Octagon Advance Ex - as 2a/b, but with water pump. P.O.A. 

I do fancy having one with a humidity readout, so it looks as though option 2B could be the one to go for...... Decisions Decisions!

 

[HesterF]

Another vote for Brinsea. I've got the Octagon 40 advance ex i.e. the most expensive option but I do like the humidity pump. Having said that, I've been mostly (trying to) hatch goose and duck eggs this year and have yet to really use the humidity pump because I've been running it as dry as possible. I've also bought a Octagon 20 eco which was one of their ex-show models and I'm just using for hatching.

Personally I love having the digital read out for the humidity and temperature and that's certainly worth the extra. I also get the cradles but do turn the goose eggs manually once a day as well.

You can buy the humidity pump later if you get the advance model so I would think 2B does sound like your best option. It is the bit I use least. But do phone them up and have a chat - their customer service guys really do seem to know what they're talking about and use the products themselves at home. Every so often they send out an e:mail with a few that they're selling off cheap because they're last year's stock or something. I phoned up quick but not quick enough - they'd all gone within half an hour. However I was really impressed when they phoned me back a couple of weeks later and said they'd just found another one and would I still be interested? Well, yes, I was (hence having my hatcher this year). It's not often you get service like that.

H

[waddy]

Another vote for the digital readout here. It is easy to set up as you want it. Our Octagon 20 Advance Ex (cradle and humidity pump) was from The Incubator Shop at £259. Delivery took less than a day even with their ordinary postal service.


Helen

[lord flynn]

I had an awful manual incubator the last two years-I actually took an axe to it in the end, rather than sell it-impossible to get humidity correct and it was cruel.
Now have a brinsea 20DX. It has a cradle (the whole thing was secondhand) but the mechanism kept getting stuck so I took it off half way through. Then I turned manually, ran it dry until the last 3 days and had a 100% of candled positive eggs hatch my first time. will be doing a bigger hatch starting next week.

[Derby_menagerie]

I have a Covina Super 24, automatic turning, fan assisted but manual humidity control, £150. Holds 24 duck/hen eggs and 96 quail eggs! not that I have done quail eggs. Second year and had successful hatchings, can't really comment on percentage as I don't know whether that was down to the eggs set or the inncy, but I've always been happy with it. Hoping that it does it's job with the current batch as it has some eggs from my favourite bantam hen which the fox got last week, so would love to have some of he progeny around the place!

[Mays]

I have the Brinsea octagon 20 advance ex auto turning and the auto humidity. Its an excellent piece of kit.

I have had 100% hatch rate so far this year, so I am delighted with it. its been on constantly for the last 9 weeks with only a few days break in between, I put a bit of oil on the turning cradle to stop the clicking and I run it dry until day 18, where I then put it up to 60% until hatching then its about 70% during hatch.