General Information
- Brand
- Matticoopx Digital Incubator
- Manufacturer
- Matticoopx
- Product Price
- About $125
I wanted to share my review of the Matticoopx Incubator here, because I know there are folks out there looking for a moderately priced incubator. At $125, this incubator is affordable, at least to give a try.
I have had the 'big name' incubator and also lower end incubators, like the Styrofoam types. All had their issues and none was ever consistent. I was more disappointed in the higher end one, because, well.. I expected to have a good experience with a product that is fairly pricey for a hobby type incubator. I gave up on it (or it gave up on me) and began looking at some other options.
Enter the Matticoopx - reviews on Amazon were very good to excellent for most folks and there were enough reviews for me to believe it was worth buying and trying. Besides, I could put a bunch of eggs in it and if it didn't work, return within the month for a full refund.
The product is made in China (surprised? LOL). Comes well packaged and while the instructions are not perfect
, grammatically, they are pretty easy to follow.
Constructed similarly to the 'B' brand incubator, the Matticoopx seems to be well constructed.
The incubator holds about 32 medium sized chicken eggs. For the first use, I started with 30 eggs, and all were growing well up til day 11 when I dropped two and cracked them. One of these eggs I removed from the incubator and the other I put back in, Leaving me with 29 to finish incubating. All 29 made it to hatch day. All pipped and all but one survived the hatch. 28 chicks in all. The 29th chick made a good attempt to get out of it's shell, but was unsuccessful.
During the first use, the egg turner functioned flawlessly. You can manually turn the eggs at the press of a button, but the machine automatically turns the eggs every hour. You cannot program the turning motor, however. At lockdown (last three days) the incubator is programmed to stop turning the eggs. If you want to incubate duck eggs or other eggs that have a different lockdown day, you'd simply reset the machine to start over on day 4 or 5 (or whatever you needed). They also have directions for resetting the turner/and days when you put in a new batch of eggs.
The Matticoopx has a pretty straight forward temperature adjustment capabilities (in farenheit) but does not offer a daily cooling off period. I overcame this by manually turning down the temperature for a few minutes a day and setting the timer on my phone. Downside is that the screen is not backlit, making it difficult to read unless you have good lighting.
There is a built-in humidity sensor, also. I do not have a hygrometer to check the accuracy of this, but the humidity seems to be holding at between 40-45%, occasionally bumping to 50%. The instructions do recommend a hygrometer if you want really accurate readings and actually recommend a good/well known brand.
Adjusting the humidity level is simple, with a rotating cover plate over a slot in the lid which is very much like the 'B' brand, but better, IMO, because the hole is bigger. There are two 'holding tanks' for water under a slotted tray in the bottom of the incubator. These are individually filled through two small openings on the outside of the incubator. One of these slots has a cover that you can put over it, labeled '2'. This is for adding water during lockdown, so keeping the cover on helps to remind which reservoir to fill. The downside to these two 'slots', is that they are very small and so you have to be precise when you pour water in, or it spills -- not a huge issue, just annoying.
They also added some nice instructions and even support contact on the outside of the incubator. I thought that was a great idea - but dang... the typo! hahaha!!!
The Matticoopx has a built-in egg candler light that functions well enough, but isn't perfect. I plan to add a piece of thick felt around the edge with sticky back tape to it, so that light doesn't shine outside the bottom edge of the egg. Something like a felt pad for chairs, or maybe thick piece of foam.
Some of the downsides to the incubator are that on day 21 the heating element and fan WILL shut off. If you have eggs that are not hatched by the end of the twenty-first day, you will have to remember to reset the incubator. This happened to me. I had three eggs not yet hatched. By the middle of day 22 all three had hatched.
Also - I do not feel the fan is well protected from the down that flies around the incubator when chicks are hatching. If you have a brooder/incubator, this would be more ideal than leaving the eggs to hatch in the Matticoopx. However, I did not run into any issues with this hatch an plan to clean the fan shroud and blades before using the incubator again.
The piece of tape I put over the turning motor hole worked pretty well, next time I will make sure it is stuck on a little better. Taping this hole will prevent debris from going down to the turning motor, during the time the chicks are hatching.
The Matticoopx Incubator is definitely worth the investment for anyone not wanting to break the bank.
I have had the 'big name' incubator and also lower end incubators, like the Styrofoam types. All had their issues and none was ever consistent. I was more disappointed in the higher end one, because, well.. I expected to have a good experience with a product that is fairly pricey for a hobby type incubator. I gave up on it (or it gave up on me) and began looking at some other options.
Enter the Matticoopx - reviews on Amazon were very good to excellent for most folks and there were enough reviews for me to believe it was worth buying and trying. Besides, I could put a bunch of eggs in it and if it didn't work, return within the month for a full refund.
The product is made in China (surprised? LOL). Comes well packaged and while the instructions are not perfect
, grammatically, they are pretty easy to follow.Constructed similarly to the 'B' brand incubator, the Matticoopx seems to be well constructed.
The incubator holds about 32 medium sized chicken eggs. For the first use, I started with 30 eggs, and all were growing well up til day 11 when I dropped two and cracked them. One of these eggs I removed from the incubator and the other I put back in, Leaving me with 29 to finish incubating. All 29 made it to hatch day. All pipped and all but one survived the hatch. 28 chicks in all. The 29th chick made a good attempt to get out of it's shell, but was unsuccessful.
During the first use, the egg turner functioned flawlessly. You can manually turn the eggs at the press of a button, but the machine automatically turns the eggs every hour. You cannot program the turning motor, however. At lockdown (last three days) the incubator is programmed to stop turning the eggs. If you want to incubate duck eggs or other eggs that have a different lockdown day, you'd simply reset the machine to start over on day 4 or 5 (or whatever you needed). They also have directions for resetting the turner/and days when you put in a new batch of eggs.
The Matticoopx has a pretty straight forward temperature adjustment capabilities (in farenheit) but does not offer a daily cooling off period. I overcame this by manually turning down the temperature for a few minutes a day and setting the timer on my phone. Downside is that the screen is not backlit, making it difficult to read unless you have good lighting.
There is a built-in humidity sensor, also. I do not have a hygrometer to check the accuracy of this, but the humidity seems to be holding at between 40-45%, occasionally bumping to 50%. The instructions do recommend a hygrometer if you want really accurate readings and actually recommend a good/well known brand.
Adjusting the humidity level is simple, with a rotating cover plate over a slot in the lid which is very much like the 'B' brand, but better, IMO, because the hole is bigger. There are two 'holding tanks' for water under a slotted tray in the bottom of the incubator. These are individually filled through two small openings on the outside of the incubator. One of these slots has a cover that you can put over it, labeled '2'. This is for adding water during lockdown, so keeping the cover on helps to remind which reservoir to fill. The downside to these two 'slots', is that they are very small and so you have to be precise when you pour water in, or it spills -- not a huge issue, just annoying.
They also added some nice instructions and even support contact on the outside of the incubator. I thought that was a great idea - but dang... the typo! hahaha!!!
The Matticoopx has a built-in egg candler light that functions well enough, but isn't perfect. I plan to add a piece of thick felt around the edge with sticky back tape to it, so that light doesn't shine outside the bottom edge of the egg. Something like a felt pad for chairs, or maybe thick piece of foam.
Some of the downsides to the incubator are that on day 21 the heating element and fan WILL shut off. If you have eggs that are not hatched by the end of the twenty-first day, you will have to remember to reset the incubator. This happened to me. I had three eggs not yet hatched. By the middle of day 22 all three had hatched.
Also - I do not feel the fan is well protected from the down that flies around the incubator when chicks are hatching. If you have a brooder/incubator, this would be more ideal than leaving the eggs to hatch in the Matticoopx. However, I did not run into any issues with this hatch an plan to clean the fan shroud and blades before using the incubator again.
The piece of tape I put over the turning motor hole worked pretty well, next time I will make sure it is stuck on a little better. Taping this hole will prevent debris from going down to the turning motor, during the time the chicks are hatching.
The Matticoopx Incubator is definitely worth the investment for anyone not wanting to break the bank.
