Brinsea Products Manual Egg Incubator for Hatching 24 Chicken Eggs or Equivalent

I LOVE this incubator!! Prior to using the Brinsea Eco 20 I had used a couple of different brands of Styrofoam incubators that I installed a forced air fan kit in from Incubator Warehouse. Incubator Warehouse's fan kit was awesome and greatly improved the Styrofoam incubator. However the Styrofoam incubators are tougher to clean, their temperatures go up and down in a wider range, it is hard to adjust the temp up or down without risking popping the temp dramatically either way, and they are bulky. It is also harder to really get a Styrofoam incubator cleaned super well when incubating and hatching batch after batch of birds (but they do work well enough overall). I wanted to give a fancier incubator a try, but I didn't want to pay for a turning machine since it increases the price dramatically and I am home plenty enough to easily turn the eggs myself. I like that I had the option with this Brinsea model to get a fancier incubator that held a larger number of eggs while spending much less than anything else similar. I liked that I could keep this quiet incubator just about anywhere with its compact size and nice shape.If you need to adjust the temp it is simple to do so gradually without the temp going way too far up or down after making eensy adjustments. The plastic makes it SUPER easy to clean again and again very well. The water troughs will evenly evaporate water gradually and without having to add more water for a couple days at a time. However when hatching be sure to really fill these troughs to the brim since I have a harder time making the humidity extra high for the hatch unless the troughs are filled up. I do live in Colorado and it is dry here so take that humidity info with a grain of salt depending on where you live. The incubator holds temps perfectly consistently when the room temperature stays steady. I use a really sensitive thermometer/hygrometer of my own on the tray of the incubator at the level of the eggs and the temp literally doesn't fluctuate by more than .1 (so like 99.5 to 99.6). If the room temperature changes by more than three degrees up or down though the incubator temp will go up or down a smidge, but I found that it wasn't a significant or dangerous amount and I was fine plus or minus five degrees of the usual room temp.I have had excellent hatches with healthy babies and they do not get as distressed chilling in this incubator to dry on the softer plastic as compared to the metal wire mesh.It is worth the extra money especially if you would like to have an incubator that will go through several runs of different batches over time. I have hatched both chicken and duck eggs well with it. The incubator also comes with a free warranty if you fill out the paperwork and provide proof of purchase with it within 30 days of buying the incubator.

Best incubator I've ever had. I've used it 3 times. The first time, I set 24 bantam eggs, 22 hatched. The 2 that didn't hatch were infertile. The second time, I set 20 full size eggs and they all hatched. The third time, I only set 3 eggs. 2 hatched, the third one was infertile. They were also about 8 to 10 days old. Every chick that hatched came out clean, strong and healthy. No blood, no crippled ones. They also all hatched within a 20 hour time frame from 1st to last chick hatched. I think it's ingenuous that you can turn all the eggs by just tilting the whole incubator (I didn't buy the egg turner) instead of rolling one egg at a time. You don't have to open it to rotate the eggs, so no heat lost. My last hatch was when the weather was fluctuating from 60 degrees in the day to in the 30's at night. We heat with wood heat, so the temperature in the house fluctuated a lot. This Brinsea incubator stayed right at 99.5 degrees. I was really impressed, because with my styrofoam incubator, I was constantly having to adjust the temperature and watching it relentlessy. I will never go back to my styrofoam incubator again. When I used it, a 60% hatch rate was doing good. But the hatching drug out over a 3 to 4 day time frame, and some chicks would be kind of mushy, crippled, or just not quite right. Some would look bloody, or their necks were curled under. I live in Arkansas, humidity is pretty high here, so I don't have to worry about it being too dry. If had to think of a complaint about this Brinsea incubator, it would be I can only fit 20 full size eggs in it, and that's putting them in there pretty close together. It barely holds 24 of my bantam size eggs. But my hens do lay rather large eggs. But other than that, I really like this incubator. I highly recommend it.

Not a fan of this rig. Spent over $200 for the incubator and cradle to incubate goose eggs. First, the cradle rig I not conducive to holding the incubator in place [as in the eggs not spilling out] when you have to remove lid or tray. The whole incubator ha tendency to fall off the little holes.Within the incubator its not easy to maintain the humidity past 45% with both of the water slots filled. Adding a towel makes it too high [65%-68%] for incubating eggs. Adding a cut sponge only keeps at 47%-53% humidity as long as the sponge stays wet. Over night the humidity dropped to 32% GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRR! Im really not happy about that! Its a contact chore by every 2-3 hours to check the humidity- I cant take the rig to my job and wake up all through the night to do this. There is no humidity gauge at all on the incubator so you will need to buy one- this takes up space either in the egg tray or you sometime have to find away to attach the humidity gauge to the lid- good luck with that. I put one in the egg tray- so that take up room of 2 goose eggs.Next is the temperature control. There is a glass thermometer stuck at the top by the heater element. Its accurate but very hard to read, especially at night. Take a flashlight and reading glasses! Also, the way the temp is adjust is by removing a part of the lid cover and using a TINY eye glasses sized flat tip screwdriver to turn a TINY little red stick connected to the system. You cannot do this with ease, best if lid is off and in hand. Its not easy at all to get exactly 99.6 or the degree 10th using a dialed temp control. You're playing a game of too high-too low over HOURS! It took using 2 thermometers to get to to what I THINK is just over 99F. Could be 100 or less than 99F I really cant tell EXACTLY. In egg hatching world a degree in temp and humidity can lead to many incubation and hatching issues! GGGGRRRRRRR!The lid on the incubator has a snug fit but its not easy to get back on when the incubator is on the cradle. Has a tendency to knock the incubator off points, risking spilling eggs. The system titling is good, and it tilts more often than egg tray turners Ive used before. Overall, not a fan of this incubator. Its like a person who never hatched any waterfowl or poultry eggs in their life designed it. THINK TWICE BEFORE PURCHASING. No so much about the cost but about what unknowns and drastic fluctuations in temp/humidity can do to your prized eggs.