Selecting an appropriate incubator

When looking for an incubator to buy, there are a number of things to consider:

1. What types of eggs you want to incubate?
   Some incubators can handle different size and types of eggs better than others. Particularly if you want an automatic turning incubator.

2. How many eggs do you want to be able to incubate?
   Each incubator is usually rated by the number of chicken eggs it can incubate at a time. If you want to do smaller eggs, ie quail eggs then the incubators will usually hold around twice as many eggs. Like wise they will only hold half as many large duck eggs.

3. Do you want to be able to put some eggs in each week or do you just want to hatch one batch of eggs at a time?
   You will either need a hatching tray in the incubator or use a separate incubator as a hatcher if you want to do multiple batches of eggs at a time.

4. Do you want automatic turning?
   Without auto turning you will need to manually turn the eggs at least twice and preferably three times per day for up to the last three days of incubation. For chickens this is 18 days. For some species, such as Muscovy ducks, it could be up to 33 days.

5. Do you want digital temperature control?
   Digital temperature control allows you to use a digital display to set the required temperature and the incubator will then keep the temperature correct for you. A non digital incubator will require a thermometer to be checked each time you set a batch of eggs to make sure the thermostat is still set correctly.

6. Do you want automatic humidity control?
   Automatic humidity control is a relatively new technology and is not available on most incubators and those that it is on tend to be much more expensive than other incubators. Mostly this technology is only being used for the more expensive eggs such as parrots and specialist poultry Without automatic humidity, you can control humidity by using the surface area of water or by varying the airflow in the incubator.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for a recommendation or help in selecting an incubator that will be suitable for you.