Having had an old 25 y.o. Miller styrofoam incubator that had done admirable yeoman's duty, I moved to a climate and altitude that was wreaking havoc on my hatch rates because the temps and humidity were hard to maintain. I needed steady, I needed impenetrable, I needed reliable, I needed not to have to check the temps every hour or so or flood the incubator because it is so darn dry out you can't get a stable humidity. The old incubator worked fine, but the challenges of hatching at a higher altitude were extreme and getting a less than 10% hatch rate is not acceptable. I had to give those expensive shipped eggs an edge and a better than fighting chance. I cannot control the brutality of the USPS which so graciously prescrambled lots of my eggs, nor did I have control over the pore size of eggs laid at sea level not being conducive to thin mountain air. But I could given the right circumstances more accurately control the physical incubation variables. Yeppers, it was time for an upgrade.
Bought from Amazon: The Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance with Auto Turner shipped from Amazon and the matching humidity pump shipped from AvianWeb.
Incubator
PROS: The Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance with auto turner and humidity pump is a SWEET machine. It takes up less room than a styrofoam box incubator and stores easily. The temperature and humidity readout and controls make operating it so amazingly simple...just set and forget. Honestly, fussing over the incubator is a thing of the past unless you're OCD about hanging around the incubator. It heats up to where you want it in half an hour and stabilizes the humidity in one hour....and that's it. The unit I got was particularly plug and play and accurately calibrated right out of the box. It's easy to program. The digital display allows you to set the temp in either C or F and you can set an alarm for if the temps get above or below a certain level...or not set them at all if you don't want to utilize that feature. If you purchased the optional humidity pump you can set the humidity rate; Otherwise, the readout lets you know what the humidity is. There's also a cool down feature that you can program that mimics a hen leaving the nest where eggs cool a bit...or not program at all if you don't want that feature.
CONS: This unit is smaller than your standard incubator and as such has a limited amount of space for chicks to move about in.
About the only bells and whistles the Octagon Advance 20 doesn't have is a calendar alarm to let you know when it's time to turn off the turner and increase the humidity for hatching lockdown. Maybe the next iteration of the Advance Brinsea will have it or -- better yet -- an auto function that lets you just set eggs and come back for chicks.
Humidity Pump
PROS: Setting it up was fairly easy and the pictures in the instruction manual are quite helpful, especially with threading the tubing for the humidity pump. If you choose the humidity pump option, the pump electricals connect directly to the top of the incubator, so there is not a third plug for the wall outlets. There's no need to prime the tubing, either, as the rotating motion of the pump will send the water to its destination. The best thing, though, is that you can set the amount of humidity you want with a digital display...and that's it. At lock down you increase the humidity...and that's it. No worries about dropping humidity levels (unless you let the ample pump reservoir run dry) as the machine takes care of it.
CONS: With the humidity pump, however, the moisture is delivered to a pad folded above the eggs which takes up a bit of incubator head space.
If purchased without the humidity pump, filling the wells in the bottom of the incubator carriage underneath the hatching tray is what supplies the humidity: Fill one for incubation and both for lockdown hatching.
One thing extremely odd was the egg rack buffers and egg basket padding were included with the humidity pump, NOT with the incubator. Although both were purchased from Amazon, they were shipped from different suppliers. Together it made for a nice, complete unit. But purchased alone, the incubator would've just had removable wire racks to hold the eggs in place in the incubator and no padding for the bottom of the plastic egg tray. The packaging didn't make sense to me. I'm sure, though, that those that didn't receive the padding could improvise (use egg cartons?) or buy additional supplies directly from Brinsea.
Auto Turner
PROS: The auto turner is a nice feature and the Octagon fits snugly into it. It does seem to tilt to an extreme, however, and does a fairly quick rotation (half an hour). Without an autoturner, though, the Octagon is easy to place on its many angled sides to manually tilt the eggs
CONS: I found the assembly screws very tight to put in.
Final thoughts:
It's so nice to have the anxiety of mechanics taken out of the equation of hatching. This Brinsea model will let you hatch with confidence. Heck, you can take off for a couple of days without worry if you want. It is a well-engineered and well-thought-out reliably steady unit. The price is a splurge, but well worth it. You truly do get what you pay for....a superb incubator.
Bought from Amazon: The Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance with Auto Turner shipped from Amazon and the matching humidity pump shipped from AvianWeb.
Incubator
PROS: The Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance with auto turner and humidity pump is a SWEET machine. It takes up less room than a styrofoam box incubator and stores easily. The temperature and humidity readout and controls make operating it so amazingly simple...just set and forget. Honestly, fussing over the incubator is a thing of the past unless you're OCD about hanging around the incubator. It heats up to where you want it in half an hour and stabilizes the humidity in one hour....and that's it. The unit I got was particularly plug and play and accurately calibrated right out of the box. It's easy to program. The digital display allows you to set the temp in either C or F and you can set an alarm for if the temps get above or below a certain level...or not set them at all if you don't want to utilize that feature. If you purchased the optional humidity pump you can set the humidity rate; Otherwise, the readout lets you know what the humidity is. There's also a cool down feature that you can program that mimics a hen leaving the nest where eggs cool a bit...or not program at all if you don't want that feature.
CONS: This unit is smaller than your standard incubator and as such has a limited amount of space for chicks to move about in.
About the only bells and whistles the Octagon Advance 20 doesn't have is a calendar alarm to let you know when it's time to turn off the turner and increase the humidity for hatching lockdown. Maybe the next iteration of the Advance Brinsea will have it or -- better yet -- an auto function that lets you just set eggs and come back for chicks.
Humidity Pump
PROS: Setting it up was fairly easy and the pictures in the instruction manual are quite helpful, especially with threading the tubing for the humidity pump. If you choose the humidity pump option, the pump electricals connect directly to the top of the incubator, so there is not a third plug for the wall outlets. There's no need to prime the tubing, either, as the rotating motion of the pump will send the water to its destination. The best thing, though, is that you can set the amount of humidity you want with a digital display...and that's it. At lock down you increase the humidity...and that's it. No worries about dropping humidity levels (unless you let the ample pump reservoir run dry) as the machine takes care of it.
CONS: With the humidity pump, however, the moisture is delivered to a pad folded above the eggs which takes up a bit of incubator head space.
If purchased without the humidity pump, filling the wells in the bottom of the incubator carriage underneath the hatching tray is what supplies the humidity: Fill one for incubation and both for lockdown hatching.
One thing extremely odd was the egg rack buffers and egg basket padding were included with the humidity pump, NOT with the incubator. Although both were purchased from Amazon, they were shipped from different suppliers. Together it made for a nice, complete unit. But purchased alone, the incubator would've just had removable wire racks to hold the eggs in place in the incubator and no padding for the bottom of the plastic egg tray. The packaging didn't make sense to me. I'm sure, though, that those that didn't receive the padding could improvise (use egg cartons?) or buy additional supplies directly from Brinsea.
Auto Turner
PROS: The auto turner is a nice feature and the Octagon fits snugly into it. It does seem to tilt to an extreme, however, and does a fairly quick rotation (half an hour). Without an autoturner, though, the Octagon is easy to place on its many angled sides to manually tilt the eggs
CONS: I found the assembly screws very tight to put in.
Final thoughts:
It's so nice to have the anxiety of mechanics taken out of the equation of hatching. This Brinsea model will let you hatch with confidence. Heck, you can take off for a couple of days without worry if you want. It is a well-engineered and well-thought-out reliably steady unit. The price is a splurge, but well worth it. You truly do get what you pay for....a superb incubator.
