Little giant styrofoam still air Incubator experience?

[Emmaloveschickens9156]

Anybody have any experience with the little giant still air styrofoam incubator? I have hatched five peafowl successfully in it, and I think my Mimi and pops have used this to successfully hatch chicken chicks before. Last time trying to hatch chicks was a horrific fail, as we put the eggs in upside down by mistake. One fully developed but couldn’t hatch. I am starting a chick hatching selling business so I just need to know if I need to buy a new incubator or not. Tomorrow is day seven. Candling day! So I guess we will see if it works or not. Just wanted your guys opinion. Thanks in advance! Pic for attention (black hen is a white rock Australorp cross, next hen is a BLR Wyandotte, next we bought as a RIR, and the last is one of my dominiques.)

 

[Kiki]

I've used one many times and had numerous perfect hatches in it.

Get some of these if you don't already have some. The 3 pack is worth it.
https://www.amazon.com/Govee-Hygrom...c4ad6f54c63c327eb6c11a03e7c6ba30&gad_source=1

 

[Emmaloveschickens9156]

Thanks so much!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I personally do not use that incubator, mine is a Hovabator 1588. It's a styrofoam with a fan. I use an automatic turner. Years ago there were basically three brands of countertop incubators, Little Giants, Hovabator, and Brinsea. Now there are so many totally different brands and types it's hard to talk about them.

But you are interested in the Little Giant so I'll go back to the old days. I don't know how much the new Little Giants may have changed. Everything is rebranding and remodeling these days. There may even be some improvements.

The Brinsea were the expensive ones. Very automated so you were pretty much hands-off when hatching. With all incubators you need to calibrate them and set them up properly to start with. Manufacturing pre-sets were not always perfect, even with the Brinsea. But once you got them set up, Brinsea were pretty easy.

The Hovabator were less expensive but required more hands-on to hatch. Adding water and maintaining humidity were a little harder than the Brinsea. It took me about three hatches to get mine set up correctly (mainly temperature) but once I got it set it was very consistent.

The Little Giants were even less expensive and could be even more hands-on. Some people on here reported not being able to keep them working properly. Some of that was probably mechanical failures but I suspect some was that it took more work to set them up properly and maintain them during hatch. Some people just did not know how to use them. To me, the bottom line is that a tremendous number of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and peafowl have been hatched in Little Giants. Some people have really hated them too.

Some people absolutely hate a styrofoam incubator, claim they don't work. Mine always did but I set it up in a location where the temperature was reasonably stable. That's the same thing Brinsea recommends for their incubators.

I am starting a chick hatching selling business so I just need to know if I need to buy a new incubator or not.

You are trying it out so you will find out if it works or not. That's pretty basic and can only be determined with any incubator by trial and error. You will see how hands-on you have to be. See if that is onerous or you are OK with it.

How big of a business are you looking at? How many chicks do you plan to hatch? Capacity may be a bottleneck. Some people that hatch a lot of chicks use two incubators, one to incubate the eggs and one as a hatcher. You need to sterilize the incubator after each hatch, they make a real mess as they hatch. A fairly typical model is to gather eggs and start them every 7 days in the incubator and weekly move them into the hatcher for lockdown. Of course that depends on how many you want to hatch and what your market will bear. Maybe something to think about.

Good luck!

 

[Emmaloveschickens9156]

To answer the question about how big of a business, I currently have 21 eggs in the incubator, and when they hatch I will sell them. My people said that if that is sucsefful, then I can get a bigger incubator and expand and go bigger. I have liked the little giant so far. Thanks for the help

 

[Emmaloveschickens9156]

And I do use the automatic turner as well