After a couple of poor hatches with a styrobator that was several years old I was able to talk my husband into a new incubator. I read about bacteria build-up in the styrofoam incubators, so one of my main requirements for the new incubator was that it was plastic, so it could be easily cleaned. I did quite a bit of research, and don't need anything for large amounts of eggs, but wanted something that was fully automatic. I also preferred the option for eggs to lay on their sides with automatic turning because I wanted to incubate peafowl. For all of these reasons I decided on the Rcom Pro 20.
This incubator truly is plug and play. I can set it to do absolutely everything automatically, even change humidity, turning, and temperature for the last three days. I have only had one hatch so far in this incubator, but it was successful. I got an 80% hatch rate on shipped peafowl eggs. Considering that my hatch rate was less than 20% on two sets shipped chicken eggs just prior to this, from about the same distance and the only difference was the incubator, I feel that the incubator should receive a lot of credit for that. (I also have a second set of shipped peafowl eggs in there currently, and as of right now at least 60% are developing, possibly more.) I think that having the automatic turner helps, as I work out of the home and having the automatic turner allowed the eggs to be rotated far more often. It also allows for more accurate humidity control. The humidity never varied more than 1 degree from where it was set, while it was a constant battle with the styrofoam incubator to keep it at a set amount, and I usually had to have it either high or low and hope to average a correct amount. The humidity and temperature are recovered after opening the incubator within about a minute. The humidity was set right on when I received it. The temp may have been slightly high, but since I knew it was within half a degree and I couldn't get thermometers to agree, I left it.
There is one drawback to this incubator, though I am not sure it really matters. I did not know this until after I purchased it, but the instruction manual states that the warranty is void if eggs are actually hatched in the incubator. Obviously, after the warranty is up this is not a deterrent. However, it is something that purchasers should be aware of. I opted to purchase a base level Brinsea (Eco 20) for hatching, but I know that many people hatch in the Rcom successfully, and since it comes apart for cleaning, I'm not sure it is that big of an issue. But it is something to be aware of.
