Chick Bator Egg Incubator - 9108

What is the point of buying an incubator that doesn't even regulate the temperature? It is a low cost but low quality solution.... I hatched one chick with it (partridge). It works, but it's worth the money to buy a good one..

So this was my first incubator, got it when I was 10 for my birthday along with 6 shipped RIR eggs. 3 went into a homemade incubator my 10 yr old self made, 3 went in this. Out of all the eggs, only one hatched and it was in this incubator, so it CAN work, though honestly it was a miracle that anything came of it, but it worked and I got 8 yrs with the best prize winning roo a girl could ask for.

I own two of these little "dinky 'bators." We purchased them years ago when the kids were wanting to incubate some chicks for a 4H unit.

The beauty of them is that they are inexpensive, small, easy to use, and accommodate very small hatches...no more than 3 regular chicken eggs fit in one incubator. So if you are not needing to set 24 to 48 eggs, you can do a small clutch. We bought 2 so that we could set 6 regular size chicken eggs.

These incubators are completely manual control, so it is a bit time intensive as you do have to fiddle a bit to keep the temperature accurate, and of course remember to turn eggs regularly...but if you take time to fiddle with it BEFORE you add eggs you want to hatch, using toss out eggs, it is possible to get the hang of it such that I was able to keep temps pretty accurately.

There is no humidity gauge, so you won't know humidity with any degree of certainty, but they are made to keep water in one leg, and kept at the proper temp it seems to keep good humidity. Please note: This unit is designed for indoor use at normal home ambient temperature in order to function properly. If your room fluctuates a lot, then this incubator will reflect that and be hard to keep in proper range.

On the one full brood we attempted, I was able to develop eggs and hatch a chick...1 out of 6....BUT 4 of the others met with an accident when a child knocked over the incubators and 4 of the eggs fell onto the floor splatting...so I have skewed results. Of the 2 left, both developed right up to hatch, but only 1 chick hatched.

I use broody hens to do my hatching/brooding, but I like to keep these incubators around for several useful purposes.

They are good to use to start eggs when I have expensive shipped eggs so that I can maximize my chances...I put 6 under my bantam broody and then 6 in these incubators...check on day 5, place the best under the broody, and then again on day 10 to again place the best under the broody. The eggs left in the incubators are my "maybes" of which none of those left have hatched...so again skewing my hatch rate...but I would not expect anything above a 50% hatch rate with these if used for the full term. (I have had a number of my day 10 switch overs hatch under the broody that were started or kept going in the incubator).

I think their best use is that they are excellent as an emergency ICU unit for a chick that is in trouble after hatching from my broodies. For that it works swimmingly well. I've used them twice for 1 chilled chick (fell out of the nest after hatching and gasping its last breath with hypothermia) and 1 assisted hatch chick with an open naval and mild omphalitis.

The incubator is small, so you can only keep a freshly hatched chick in it for a few hours until they dry out, sleep it off, and want to move around....or a sick chick on the mend until they are up and moving again.

So while I wouldn't expect to use it to keep a solid hatching program going, it does have use for those who desire small educational hatching or an extension for developing shipped eggs with broodies or as a chick ICU.

Lady of McCamley