Little giant incubators

[tommijo]

I am new to this site but not new to having fowl. I have a 18 wood duck eggs i got out of a nest on Saturday. Only because this nest keep getting abandoned, threw out 15 old half incubated that were below the new ones. I am tilting and rotating the egg and bought a little giant and turner and calibrating it now. Should I order a hovabator and take 3 to 4 day to get it or go with the little giant. Thank for any help I read where the hovabator is preferred by is the little giant really bad.


Tom

 

[arlee453]

LG's work OK.

I have to ask though - was this a wild duck nest??

 

[tommijo]

yes I raised 60 mallard and have 20 geese. I have one already lost one brood of mallards and had two other nest abandon

 

[Zookeeper9000]

Hi Tom I am not sure what to tell ya about ordering a Hova. I have 2 LG's a still air and a forced air and had good hatches in both of them. I had started a thread about anyone who incubates in a LG and had some very good help from the people who responded also Purplechicken has a post out there that is good. I also bought 2 used Hova 1588's with turners and they are hatching now, I am having great results with those as well. I have turners for the Hova's and didn't for the LG's I also hatched in egg cartons and was happy I did that. Try a search on hatching in a LG and see what you can find. Many people have great results in LG's and in Hova's it depends on so much.

Good luck happy hatching and welcome, sorry I couldn't help but the decission is really yours.

 

[arlee453]

I thought taking wood duck eggs out of the wild was against the law? Maybe it's just state to state?

Anyway, the LG should work OK - it's not the top of the line bator, and many here have had better luck with Hovas, but many also have used LGs with great success.

I think if you have the turner that would help a lot as it would keep the temps much steadier than having to open the bator to turn the eggs.

 

[tommijo]

All my ducks and geese are wild on my pond. I can not count the eggs I have cleaned out of boxes in the last couple of years. If they hatch they are kept in a pen on the pond until they can fly then released. but even then the predators will take their share I just try give them a chance.

 

[equine chick]

Some people have good luck with the lg, I did not. I was lucky to get a 20% hatch. I'm not home all day to constantly readjusted the temp humidity ect. I lost alot of money in expensive eggs. It was not just one, I had two lgs thinking one was just bad or not accurate. I was just about to give up and someone suggested the genesis 1588 by hovabator and now I have 80-100% hatches. I sold both of mine on ebay for about what i paid for them so very happy. I think if you have the circulated air one, maybe it works better but after going through a hatch and it looked really good and my temp spiking to 113 or higher on 3 hatches I was ready to throw the thing in the trash. My 1588 is awesome, I've never had to adjust the temp and we are on our 4 th hatch with it so we bought another one a couple weeks ago.

 

[luvmychicknkids]

I have only used my LG once (any bator for that matter) but it did really well for me. Hatched 10 of 12 developing and those two were lost to humidity issues, but I wasn't using a hydrometer so it was my fault. I hand turned and the temps were back very quickly every time. The only time I had to adjust the temp was when I added shelf liner and I guess it insulated it more or something because I had a temperature spike immediately afterward. Good luck.

 

[seriousbill]

Ah, the LG still air incubator. I've been using these since about 1996 or so. Before that, I just used broody hens.

They can be tricky, require lots of monitoring, but if you get a stable one, they do just fine. I've had three. One was prone to the occasional spike, and I got rid of it. The other two are merely heat losers. But they lose heat slowly enough that it's not a problem. I can easily compensate every few days. I've never had a 0% hatch in my LGs. The lowest was probably 20% and the highest was probably 95%. And we're talking about upwards of 25 hatches over the years in those bators.

I don't recommend them, but I do know that they can work.

Edited to correct date.

 

[tommijo]

Thank for the responses. I have been calculating it and it will recover from a set 99.7 closed open and it drop to 92 close and back to 99.7 in ten minutes. maybe I got lucky no spikes. This is with the digital probe at 1" off the wire. what should it read at that placement.