# Talk to me about incubators



## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

So I have three more female peking ducks on the way and I've decided to bite the bullet and get an incubator. Its something I've been thinking about even with just the one female! lol

I am seeing them advertised, as manual, automatic and semi-automatic. First two are self explanatory obviously, but what exactly is the semi-automatic?

I know I dont want a manual one as I'm away from the house for 10 - 12 hrs so I wont be able to turn them enough, plus I'll just forget.


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## fd123 (May 29, 2012)

keren said:


> So I have three more female peking ducks on the way and I've decided to bite the bullet and get an incubator. Its something I've been thinking about even with just the one female! lol
> 
> I am seeing them advertised, as manual, automatic and semi-automatic. First two are self explanatory obviously, but what exactly is the semi-automatic?
> 
> I know I dont want a manual one as I'm away from the house for 10 - 12 hrs so I wont be able to turn them enough, plus I'll just forget.


The way i understood the semi-automatic is that the incubator comes with the swivel egg tray..>>but instead of it having its own electric turning motor, it has a knob sticking out of the front of the incubator that you have to turn manually...Ive piddled with hatching chickens a few times and id highly recommend that you get the automatic egg turner! Dont forget to add water in the tray...>>AND KEEP A CLOSE WATCH ON THE TEMPERATURE!!!!>>(This is CRITICAL!!!) My first hatch of chickens had lots of deformed feet due to high temperature...I didnt know that as the chicks started forming that they created their own heat , therefore i didnt know to adjust the thermostat down daily to compensate for this...
Oh Yeah,....NO WORRIES...>>>You will NOT FORGET ABOUT THE INCUBATOR!!! Youll be excited about it!! Try to refrain from opening it unless your adding water...> thats the reason the put the clear windows on top...lol....
BEST OF LUCK!!


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

I personally splurged and bought a fully automatic digital incubator. Saved my life!! Get a surge protector in your plug-in. I set the program for chicken eggs, or guinea, or duck, how many times a day I want rotated, the temp, the humidity, and bam! Babies. All that was needed from me was to add water when low, and to turn the humidity up when close to hatching and to stop turning accordingly. Best chick raising investment made so far. Be careful what size you get because once you start with something so easy, you'll want to raise and sell. It's an addiction!


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

To be honest I realised today that if I get the fully automatic one, even if only 50% of the eggs hatched, it would more than pay for itself with the first batch.


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## NyGoatMom (Jan 26, 2013)

I have 4 LG Still air bators ...2 with eggturners, 3 with fans and one totally still air manual.

They hatch hundreds of chicks for me each year.
I do watch temps/humidity several times a day though. If you are not around much....go for the automatic


Oh, or better yet, get some Silkies and let them do all the sitting for you


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

keren said:


> To be honest I realised today that if I get the fully automatic one, even if only 50% of the eggs hatched, it would more than pay for itself with the first batch.


Yup! I bought a $600 fully auto incubator. I am able to set 30 eggs. Even at 90% hatch, 27 eggs normally. 20-22 day hatches (we terminate night of the 22). We start setting Jan 1st, and we want all eggs hatched by Sept 1st. We usually end up with 12 hatches. At 90% that's 324 chicks. We sell purebred Cochin bantam, purebred Orp, purebred Ameraucana as well as Ameraucana Cochin bantam crosses. All (edited to clarify) CROSS chicks normally at $3.50 for a newborn. Once fully feathered, $5. That's $1,134 bucks if all newborns make it and are sold. Of course not factoring in electric, feed, water, and grit.

We actually have 2 chicks hatching as I type from a setting on the 23rd!  happy hatching!


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

Geez your figures are different to mine. 

The incubator I am looking at sets 52 eggs, fully automatic, costs $150. Ducklings here sell for $10 - 15 newborn


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

keren said:


> Geez your figures are different to mine.
> 
> The incubator I am looking at sets 52 eggs, fully automatic, costs $150. Ducklings here sell for $10 - 15 newborn


Remember mine is digital.  I use a top of the line program used by professional small-scale hatcheries. I have very little fertility problems, and very few incubator-related problems. I also bought new. My figures are also using only a 90% hatching rate. Last year at peak I had 98% hatching rate. We also have three other incubators. I have a semi-automatic incubator that holds 65 eggs I bought for 100 bucks. I have to turn the incubator 3x/day, but there are more inconsistencies with this incubator. At peak, highest hatch rate was at 92%. I have a cheap-o farm n fleet incubator still air with all the attachments I purchased used for 60 bucks. This one is even more inconsistent mainly because of he styrofoam. Best hatching rate for this one was 88%. I used this one for my cross eggs, for this reason. The fourth and last incubator I have success with 92% hatch rate at peak with an automatic incubator that holds 48 eggs. Not digital though. My expensive eggs (Maran, colored Orpingtons) go into the digital automatic Incubator. These chicks I pull $6 newborn. My Ameraucana and EE (Ameraucana Maran crosses) go into the semi-auto that I have to turn. These chicks i pull $5 newborn. The Cochin bantams go into the auto (non-dig), i pull $4 of these, and as I said my Ameraucana Cochin crosses go in this one as these sell like hot cakes but they're not worth as much. I pull $3.50 off these.


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

keren said:


> Geez your figures are different to mine.
> 
> The incubator I am looking at sets 52 eggs, fully automatic, costs $150. Ducklings here sell for $10 - 15 newborn


Oh yeah, and I'm talking chicken eggs. Lol duck eggs we would get less hatches, but newborn ducklings sell for $8 a piece here. I don't incubate ducks. They're WAY too messy for me. I incubated a couple batches for mere profit last year with eggs given to me from an over supplied friend. Guinea season is my most profitable time. I have three hens this year. Guinea keets sell for about $12-15 newborn here. Pretty pumped for keeting.


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## NyGoatMom (Jan 26, 2013)

keren said:


> Geez your figures are different to mine.
> 
> The incubator I am looking at sets 52 eggs, fully automatic, costs $150. Ducklings here sell for $10 - 15 newborn


Wow....ducklings here are 5-6 bucks a piece....chicks, depending on quality and feed are 2.00-5.00


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

Day old chicks here are around the $10 - 12 mark. Sometimes you get lucky and find them for $5 - 8 but its rare. 

Ducklings are generally more around the $15 mark, and sometimes lucky to get them for $10. 

LOL i hear ya on the mess ducklings make. I've raised them plenty of times and gosh they are messy in the brooder. But ducks have SOOOOOOO much more character than chickens, plus the drakes dont crow and my hubby is dead set against me having any noisy animals (thus no guinea fowl either) since he doesnt sleep well at the best of times. So I have ducks, not chickens. Having said that my friend has chickens and would like to go halves with me for the incubator so she can use it as well. Perhaps we will alternate hatches between chickens and ducklings.


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

keren said:


> Day old chicks here are around the $10 - 12 mark. Sometimes you get lucky and find them for $5 - 8 but its rare.
> 
> Ducklings are generally more around the $15 mark, and sometimes lucky to get them for $10.
> 
> LOL i hear ya on the mess ducklings make. I've raised them plenty of times and gosh they are messy in the brooder. But ducks have SOOOOOOO much more character than chickens, plus the drakes dont crow and my hubby is dead set against me having any noisy animals (thus no guinea fowl either) since he doesnt sleep well at the best of times. So I have ducks, not chickens. Having said that my friend has chickens and would like to go halves with me for the incubator so she can use it as well. Perhaps we will alternate hatches between chickens and ducklings.


That last bit sounds like something that would totally work well for you!


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## Jessaba (May 13, 2010)

We just bought a digital cabinet incubator which was a little over 700 bucks, and will pay for itself with a few hatching. Definitely GLAD we got this one. Temp is already set, we just put eggs in, set the turners to automatically turn, put in water when its low and turn egg turners off 3 days prior to hatching, then move eggs to hatching tray in bottom of incubator. It holds 300 chicken eggs so we hatch a lot!

Definitely worth the investment for us! 

We raise turkeys, pheasants and peacocks as well as a few breeds of chickens, and its worth it to put the expensive birds to be in the expensive incubator. We also have a still air one, and it worked ok, but we needed something that would hold more eggs.


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