I wanted to hatch some chicks from fertile eggs in the post. Council doesn’t let me keep roosters so I had the choice of getting point of lay hens or to hatch some from fertile eggs in the post. My last 2 hens were Australorps (standards) and I found that they were too big for my suburban backyard so I wanted to replace them with bantams. A nice man came around to take Anabel and Blackie to their new home in the mountains where they have lots of room. This is how my first incubator looked like – it’s made from a styrofoam brocolli box that had a lid. Heat source is an incandescent bulb – 60W. I hooked up an old computer fan to circulate the air. A takeaway container below the fan/light bulb served as a water container to maintain humidity at the desired range. Wire separated the egg chamber from the water/heat source. I also put some aluminum foil in front of the bulb to stop the heat from directly hitting the eggs.
Poked some holes in the lid for ventilation and put a viewing window (perspex from a picture frame)
My thermostat – I didn’t know where to get one so I got one from a store that sold beer brewing products. Since then I’ve learnt that it’s not the best one to get because it’s not as accurate as it should be – it should read to 1 decimal place. I didn’t want to cut holes in a plastic junction box so I ended up using my son’s lego pieces to build a box for it – it’s perfect!
Here’s the result :
What I’d do differently :
