Egg Incubator Pro

Anyone who raises an egg laying animal for retail purposes will tell you that an incubator is vital to maintaining the stock, and the better you purchase the more profitable your venture will be. Here we will present a few facts that will help a person in the selection process.

First of all, an egg incubator imitates the natural actions that the layer of the egg would make under ideal situations. For explanation purposes, we will use chickens. After the fowl lays the egg she will then sit on the egg creating a temperature around 98 degrees, and roll the egg aroun 3-4 times per day. This will be done for 21 or 22 days until the hatching occurs. The chicken rolls the embryo to ventilate the shell, and allow for even heating throughout the egg. Ventilation is important to the shell to prevent any softening, and the shell is somewhat anti-bacterial in nature.

An incubator electrically provides these needs without the hen, usually using a heat lamp. Commercial models are available that use heating elements, turning devices, and fans to provide circulation. We will discuss the commercially available machines. There are many styles and brand names available according to the type of production desired. There are 1-2 egg models all the way up to cabinet incubators for high production facilities. Almost all offer thermostatic controlling of variable temperatures and humidity controls also on the larger models. Since turning is very important, automatic turners are available for virtually all incubators.

Prices vary greatly from different manufacturers. and the option is always there to DIY on a small project, so considering your needs is critical here. There is a plethora of information on this on the internet today.

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Have you ever run into a situation where you lost a few, to several fertile eggs due to the mother or father bird’s inability or lack of interest in egg sitting? Do you run a business as to where these sorts of risks could cost you thousands to millions? Wouldn’t it be easier if there were products out there that only cost around 50 to 300$, in comparison to the millions overall you could be losing without? Sounds like a godsend right? Well the product does exist, egg incubators.

What is an egg incubator?

An egg incubator is a device which replaces the absence of a mothers or fathers ability to egg sit to hatch an egg.

What are the different kinds of incubators available?

Private incubator / home incubator – These are the normal default incubators which can be purchased just about anywhere from between 30$ to 100$. They are small, compact, and much like a box in shape and size. The device heats the eggs, typically capable of holding between 6 and 24 eggs depending on the species of bird.

These incubators are designed to hold in heat and humidity, along with the digital ability to let you know how warm and humid it is inside the incubator at all times.

Industrial / Bulk Egg Incubators – These are the harder to find incubators, can carry anywhere between hundreds to thousands of eggs at one moment in time. Usually the incubators are designed with a rack system, the only down fault is these large scale machines are rather unreliable unless you invest in a well designed model, which could run from 500$ to 3000$.

When it comes to large scale incubators you should be careful when purchasing homemade models, it would be bad to spend thousands on an incubator which promotes heat but cannot hold humidity with birds that need it.

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When you are keeping and breeding chickens, either for selling stocks of chickens or stocks of eggs, there is one problem which frequently occurs, whether to use a chicken egg incubator or to allow the hens to sit on the eggs for incubation.

Really the answer depends on your main intent on incubating the eggs in the first place, if you are producing chicks in bulk to sell the offspring to other farmers or farming stores, your ideal option would be to invest in an incubator.

While if you are using a chicken egg incubator only on the occasion to increase your own supply of hens to produce eggs for you, letting the hens sit is an appropriate option, but to be on the safe side you still need a incubator in case the event either your hen will not sit, or you have many predators invading the pen and you need a source of backup if something like a wolf runs off with all of the hens, and you need to save the eggs to start over again.

So when looking for an incubator what should you be looking for?

Just about any specific bird incubator will work with chicken incubation; it’s not a matter of the incubator itself but its ability to hold specific sizes of eggs, how many eggs, and whether the incubator can be adjusted for specific settings. It is typically up to you to keep up on humidity, but the incubator will still measure it for you.

When looking for more than just a home incubator, as in incubators with the potential capacity to carry hundreds to thousands of fertile eggs, it may seem impossible to find an incubator you do not have to build yourself. But the internet carries many directories to many different specialty stores which carry exactly what you need.

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Chicken incubators are used to hatch chicken eggs and have been around for years. There are many practical uses for a chicken incubator which include anything from grade school projects to serious poultry breeding, for this article we will focus on the hobbyist perspective.

There are two types of incubators on the market, the forced air incubator which is more often used when hatching a large amount of eggs. This type of incubator has a fan which circulates the warm are more evenly around the eggs and also has an automatic feature when it comes to turning the eggs.

The still air incubators are more often used for hatching smaller amounts of eggs however this type usually requires more attention in turning the eggs due to this having to be done manually. The basic premise behind chicken incubators is to keep the eggs at a constant temperature in order to get the eggs to hatch properly.

Temperatures should be between 100-102 degrees depending on the type of incubator. Eggs need to be turned at least 4-6 times a day, and you should see eggs starting to hatch as soon as 21 days.

Both types have their own advantages the type of chicken incubator you choose would depend on how much time and money you wish to spend. Some of the more popular brands are Miller, SureHatch, Sportsman and Hova-Bator.

The average price for forced air incubators is 69.00 to 815.00 dollars depending on size and features, while the still air incubators price range is between 42.00 & 98.00 dollars

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Have you ever considered investing in the art of chicken farming? Whether it is for meat, eggs, or breeding for farming supply stores. One of the important concepts to consider before investing in the responsibility of breeding chickens is to understand what you need to go about hatching chicken eggs on a steady professional level.

What costs are involved in hatching chicken eggs? Does it pay off in the end?

When breeding and hatching chickens, most of the actual costs are physical and time consuming, and not financial. The only for sure financial costs involved in breeding and hatching chickens are incubation machines, feed, housing, and medical aid.

Why is an incubator vital in breeding chickens if the mother hens can sit on the eggs?

When it comes to egg incubation naturally yes the mother hen will hatch the eggs, and in some cases this is an acceptable way to go about breeding chickens, but only in small numbers. When breeding large scales of chickens, you need a backup plan if the mother hen is not capable of carrying out the incubation process.

Why do breeders need a backup incubation plan?

When it comes to breeding livestock, there are many key concepts which could stand in the way and falter your overall success, but when it comes to buying all of the animals for such large scale numbers of eggs, these risks are not affordable.

You will be faced with mother hens being unwilling to incubate her eggs, hens getting stressed out from not being able to hatch unfertile eggs which could lead to illness. On open farms, even with fences, and electric protection you will also be faced with predators seeking out your own livestock, sometimes these incidents can take out your entire hen house, in such a case if you were keeping your eggs in a separate indoor incubator, you would be able to start back over again without paying anything to purchase more livestock.

In the end using your own incubator you can keep track of hundreds to thousands of eggs without the risks of bad weather, predators, chickens eating their eggs, chickens not egg sitting, and much more.

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