First Timer Observations and Questions

[Bigfishbobby]

We are on day 23 of our very first chicken egg incubation so it’s officially going to be a wrap, although we did have one hatch today. We incubated 30 eggs in a Farm Innovators forced air incubator with an egg turner purchased at Rural King. We candled at day 7, had 4 that were suspicious so we candled again at day 10 and confirmed they were not progressing and discarded them, leaving 26. At day 3 or 4 our unit was erratic temperature wise so I bought another unit, warmed it up and transitioned on the fly. Things seemed ok temperature wise until day 18. Once I took the turner out, the unit won’t hit 99 degrees even if I turn it up to 104.5 so I am assuming this unit is crap too. Sadly, I am invested in the turner and quail rails for it that are beyond return date, so I am able to swap the main unit (since I bought a new one mid incubation) again but not able to return all of it and go another route. Even with the issues, we hatched 15 of the 26 which I am guessing isn’t bad. All of ours are barnyard mixes that we got eggs for locally, so no shipped eggs.

Questions
1) Am I unrealistic to hope for a higher hatch rate?
2) Are these units as crappy as I feel they are, or did I just have some bad luck?
3) I am considering the purchase of a second unit, a Nurture Right 360. Should I expect higher quality with that unit or more of the same of what I am experiencing now?

 

[Bigfishbobby]

My unit is set on 103.0. The highest temp was achieved set at 104.5 but I got spooked that if it somehow started working I would have baked chicken nuggets so I backed it off.

 

[BlackHenCoop]

1: sometimes it just depends on the chickens! We were hatching 12 and only 8 hatched, and all the ones we’ve done from broody chickens have all hatched. If you want higher hatch rates I would suggest a better incubator or using (trusted) broody hens.

2: it does seem kind of a bad incubator.

3: I can’t answer this one, but I can find out what kind we use.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Incubators are just like any other piece of electronic equipment, some work for years and others die in 3 weeks, name brand may be more reliable but even then you can get a wonky one. I tried a nearly new name brand incubator that ran consistently 105F no matter what you set it at. I ran a No name Amazon incubator for over a dozen hatches with no issues that started making weird noises last hatch and now can’t get above 98F so I replaced it, but for the price it wasn’t a bad run, not sure if it is worth it to spend thrice the price on a name brand but maybe it is,especially for people who hatch lots of eggs, I’m a mere dabbler!