Going to try incubating for the first time

I got this tiny incubator of ebay last year and have not dared to try incubating for one this bator is really small and has no humdity thingy and a paper temp gage,its make of plastic with a tiny hole in the top and the cover does not fit snug,it looked bigger on ebay and I didn`t know what I was buying I guess,Oh well have some silkie eggs going to give it a try in a couple days,trying to get it regulated so it will stay between 100 and 98 (GOING TO BE HARD TO DO)It stays close to 100 in the daytime but we turn our furnace down to 62 at night and it was 94 this morning but it says to wrap tin foil around one side it you can`t keep the temp up,so going to fool around with it some more then give it a try.I felt so bad this morning when I got up and seen one of my 7 month old silkie pullets outside.I thought they were all in last night when I put the door down,she must have been under the ramp,it was 16 when I got up this morning at 6;45,I was like a wild woman in my bathrobe and muck boots running outside to put her it,I had the heat lamp on inside and she got wrmed up quick,hope there is no efects form this.She seems fine,I thought and was told that they are not a hardy chicken,she has proved me wrong.They just started laying last week.From now on I will count and look behid the coop!!!I put an orange beside the bator so you could see how small it is,not muc bigger than the orange it hold three to four silkie eggs I`m going to try three.Opened up two of the silkie eggs and one was fertile.I have two and will wait untill I get another one.

Heres a thought - try putting the incubator in a small cooler with the cooler lid partially propped open for adequate air flow. You may find it easier to stabilize the temp inside the incubator when you "modify" the outside temp fluctuations. I have had little success incubating when the room temp varies much more than 5-10 degrees. Good luck fellow Maineiac...Scott

Great idea never thought of that.

Hi Green: Is that little bator heated with a light bulb? The reason I asked is because I use a standard sixty watt bulb to heat my small fish tank with three little seramas inside and it's perfect during the day, but at night it drops about seven degrees, so I drape it at night with a dish towell and that keeps it six degrees warmer at night. I noticed the drop in your bator to be about the same amount of degrees and was wondering if you could just drape it with a dishtowell at night for the temp change. Just a thought...Good luck to you Hay.

Hay,its a 7 watt like in the candles you put in your windows at Christmas.It says to put aluminum foil around half of it at night if the temp drops,I tried that this morning and it did bring it up pretty fast,a dish towel would do the same,thanks for the help.

If you need some good reading, you should check out my first time... I got some wonderful advise from everyone here, and although I am only on my 2nd bator session, I am not running to it every 5 minutes, and I think I am ready when the time comes for pipping..LOL (See I learned...)
Congrats on your first time.
Us newbe's UNITE!!!

hello Green,
I have one of those lil incubators. I have had it for at least 10 years so I know they have been around a long time. They do work.
Good luck with your hatch

I just bought a new Hovabator inc, and I put twenty eggs in that were given to me. I wanted to test run it, and this is the fourth day now and it has stayed on 100, so far with no fluctuation at all so far. With the egg turner and bator it was only a hundred seventeen bucks. I haven't used this kind before and wanted to try it out. That was a very decent price I thought. They lady at the company told me they usually sell for a hundred thirty seven so a little savings. I'd be interested in anyone else who used one to share their opinion on it with me. Hay.

Does it have a fan Hay? I love my Hovabator. It has a plastic liner on the bottom. I use it for a hatcher now.. Hova is great for getting the RH up and keeping it up.

Ok I put three silkie eggs in tonght,when should I candle?

Okay...you don't count the day you put them in. So tomorrow is day 1. You can candle them at about 6-7 days. Before that it is hard to tell and the fine veins that are forming are fragile and might be damaged by accidentally jarring the egg.

I think about jarring them when I turn them try to be real easy.

Good luck! I had seen those little bators on ebay and wondered about them. Does it have a turner? I would like to add a turner to my bator. It costs $40 at TSC. That is how much I paid for the bator. I bought another bator so i could use the "old" one for a hatcher. That way my new one can stay clean. I can easily do 2 dozen eggs with no turner. Turning is not the problem with the system I have worked out. It's just having to be here all the time to turn them. I can turn 2 dozen in less than 5 seconds. I leave them in the carton and prop the side up. When it's time to turn the eggs (9am, 3pm, 9pm) I just move the prop to the other side of the carton. Easy peezy.

This message was edited Mar 30, 2010 8:13 AM

This is so tiny it can only hold three silkie eggs,no room for anything in,I was wondering where I can put a sponge near hatching time to up the himmitity,even if I just cut off a small piece I don`t where I would put it,I doubt they will even hatch.Just wanted to try it.I see you turn three times a day,my booklet said twice a day.

This message was edited Mar 30, 2010 12:11 PM

Green,
I think the bottom of that lil incubator is like a bowl you add the water down there the heat from the light bulb will evaporate it or you can sit the eggs on top of a spunge you have cut to fit the wire rack.
Tina

Definitely at least 3 times...more if you like. The idea is to always turn them an odd number of time so that they don't spend every night in the same position.

Yes I keep the bottom filled with water.and thats what I can do with the sponge is put it on that wire rack,it will have to be some thin cause the eggs almost touch the top of the dome on the sides.And I will turn them at least three times a day.

mabie cut some holes in the sponge so that you sit the eggs in the hole of the spunge to keep them down lower.

Good Idea

Yes ZZ's it does have a fan and I'm now going on day five and it has never moved off of a hundred and the humidity has been right on between 49 & 55 steadily. So far I'm impressed with it. I love the wing nut lock on it. Once you get it where you want it, you just lock the wing nut and it stays very steady. I'm impressed and pleased so far.

Is lock down four days before hatch?

You count 18 days from the day after you put them in the incubator. On the 18th day you stop turning them and raise the humidity. The humidity should be 70% for the hatch and that is even more important than the exact temp.

I found a scientific paper studying the effect of egg turning. The results were rather surprising. It seems that turning is vital to the metabolic activity of the chick (and less in preventing the chick sticking to the side of the egg) and that there are certain times when the cessation of turning is especially harmful. One of their observations was that it was actually better to stop turning on the 12th day than the 15th, with the 18th day being optimal.

This message was edited Apr 15, 2010 10:59 PM

Yes that was interesting

I was trying to find the original journal article again, and found this...it is really interesting, especially the second part where the respondent discusses their own experiences with hatching eggs in a home-made incubator.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Should+hatching+eggs+be+turned%3F-a018627133

LOL Ok I have lost my rocker... I was reading this statement and my mouse went over the word runts and the description that popped up was about candy...ROF

To butcher the largest, finest cockerels and save the runts for the breeding pen

Runts (also known as Fruit Runts) are candies sold by Nestlé under their Willy Wonka Candy Company brand. First seen on the market in 1982, they are fruit flavored candies in the shape of their respective fruits.

Thanks Catscan for the information

Of course I had to try pointing out runts and got the same definition. Why were some words underlined and defined even wrongly?

It was an interesting theory.

Green< How did the hatch go?

Threw them out ,gave them five extra days and nothing,I really didn`t think they would hatch.

Dont give up Green, I had only 2 hatch the first time, and lost one... I loaded up the bator again and hatched 9... Now awaiting another hatch in a few days...

That's how you need to get your baby geese from now on.

That bator is so small and no way of regulating temp or hummity thats its not worth the time to do it.

No more Baby Geese for us.... They are not selling as well as I thought they would...

Well it IS hard to sell a gosling you can't catch...

Done Gone and awaiting the second hatching... will keep one of those...

What is gone?

Them Geese...

Now the lady that gave us the two geese wants one back, says that its why one of her drakes is getting sickly cause his girlfriend is gone and she heard they mate for life... Well now lets have a gander at the situation shall we?? We have had the geese for a good few months, I would think like 6 or so.. They have bonded with Sesame Street (My Gander) and he mated with both. I am thinking that if it was bothering her gander it would have happened before now. I mean how do I know which one was mating with which one, and well to be frank, WHO BONKED WHO... She has other geese so I am thinking she is a tad bit loony.. What if I take Sesame Streets favorite girl away from him??/ besides I am not understanding her request, I would have had it been way before now, but I dont think her gander (Who have other girls in his pen) is pining for his mate... OHH sorry I will get off my soap box.. AND ONE MORE THING... Who is going to tell Billy either his beloved Cookie or Ketchup has to go???

Tell her about Billy's attachment. Unless she's even loonier than she already sounds, I don't think she would want to sadden such a sweet little boy.

tell her NO!. Unless she can tell which goose it the right one. Besides she gave them to you and Billy

You don't give something to a child and then want it back. No way!!