R-Com RCOM Pro 20 PX20 Fully AUTOMATIC Digital Egg INCUBATOR Brand NEW WARRANTY Your Local USA Distr

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.

My son did an egg to chick project at school, so I was off on my hunt for the best incubator for a classroom of four-year-olds.

It had to have:

1. Easy operation, I mean the teacher shouldn't have to tinker with it at all. She only needed to add water with this model.
2. It had to do everything on it's own, I hadn't hatched eggs before so I needed a model that was preprogrammed with push button ease.
3. It had to be childproof, the room was filled with tiny little fingers that like to press buttons and such. This incubator has a nice touchpad control that basically locks once started. The kids could poke around on it and not harm the settings. THANK GOD!
4. Great visibility, the little people would want to watch the magic. Great top viewing on this model, I did tape the top closed after I found it slightly ajar once but the tape worked.
5. Easy to clean, duh dirty incubators stink. I couldn't imagine how much of a big deal this would be, I just open it up and soak all but the electrical piece in soapy bleach water in the sink. (The electrical piece gets a damp wipe-down with cleaning solution.) After a quick rinse and air dry it's perfectly clean and ready for more work. Do not underestimate the ability to properly clean your incubator, this should have been the first thing on the list and not the last, hindsight.


I trusted the wrong thermometer and thus my first hatch wasn't that great, but after I found a good bulb thermometer I've had excellent hatches.
Species menu covers everything (if you know that guineas and turkeys hatch about the same way) and it really couldn't be any easier.
This model makes me look like I know what I'm doing!