How to raise Backyard Chickens: Re: [CHICKENS-101] Incubator questions...please share your experience or thoughts

You can buy liners for Styrofoam incubators and they help keep bacteria down. Make sure you do not block air flow if you cover your incubator with a blanket. The eggs have to have fresh air for growth.

  Cathryn rainbowsilkiesTM  in  Michigan

    rom: Straight <straight6@earthlink.net>
 To: CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2013 10:21 PM
 Subject: Re: [CHICKENS-101] Incubator questions...please share your experience or thoughts

The small styrofoam box incubators work well.  Get a good   one with plastic windows in the top, a thermometer and hygrometer, and it should   have a wire mesh floor.  The best ones have a thermostat that sticks up on   top.  However, the ones with an interior thermostat can be stacked, both   for hatching and storage.  Save the cardboard box, you can put it back   in to protect it until next year.  Those things are rather   fragile.   

I have had problems at times with them holding temperature if   the house gets cold.  A blanket over the top fixes that problem.    Or a nice thick towel.

You can get turners.  I never used one, I just remember   to roll them over 3 times a day if I can.  Be cautious putting water   in to regulate the moisture level.  If you put it in a container you can   take it back out if necessary, a saucer or jar lid or something flat.  And   lukewarm water. 

The fun comes when they hatch.  They flop around,   trying to stand up, all wet, and they knock the other eggs all around.    Somebody trying to peck that last half inch out of the shell winds up standing   on his head.  It really is best if you have an empty   warm incubator to put them in to get stabilized, dried off, fluffed up   and ready for the world.

I believe those foam jobs may pick up some kind of bug after   awhile.  That foam is quite porous.  Even if you clean them, by   about year 3 or so there seem to be a lot of eggs that don't hatch.    So I used Clorox on that one and set it out in the hot sun for a couple of   weeks.  Seemed to help.  I'm in NYS so my version of hot sun may be   different from yours.

Once the babies are dry and peeping, you might be able to   turn them over to a willing mother hen, just like the ones you   buy.

Oh, I guess they'll hold about 25 eggs or so.  If you   want to hatch 200, you probably want something different.  Read the   catalogs, they'd love to sell you a big one.

Diane S.--sw NYS

----- Original Message ----- 
From:     Debbie Ryan 
To: CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com     
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2013 4:02     PM
Subject: [CHICKENS-101] Incubator     questions...please share your experience or thoughts

Hello Fellow Flock Keepers,
I am interested in hearing the pros and cons of hatching     eggs in an incubator. 
I would love to hear of recommendations on Brand, type, air     or still air, hygrometer or not, etc. for which our members have had     experience.
I have always used Mother Nature with a broody Momma Hen to     hatch out any chicks.  I run a mixed flock (mostly rocks, cochins, naked     necks, araconas, brahmas, black stars) with 4 roosters and 45-50 hens, at any     given time.  Generally, I will have a broody hen, but am not always able     to separate her to ensure that her eggs remain safe, unbroken and the age of     the eggs are stable.  They are free range, but do lay and roost in an     enclosed barn for protection.
Thanks in advance for sharing your wealth of knowledge and     experience.
Debbie and all of the "kids"     in AZ