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Are you looking for the best egg incubator backyard chickens enthusiast can use? We aren’t looking for anything special, and we just want to hatch our own chicken eggs. Ideally, it will be cheap and simple to use. Just for those rarer chicken breeds, we want to add to our stock.
Am I right? Of Course, I am.
We went looking for just that, a small incubator that was simple to use and cheap. But still works on hatching at least 12 chicken eggs at a time. I think I found the best egg incubator backyard chicken lovers like us can use that won’t kill our budgets.
Some of those egg incubators are really expensive. That’s fine if your selling chickens, but for me. I just need a small one for now. I had to do a little Hack on it, which I’ll share a little later.
Best Incubator For Beginners
To start off with, I’ve not hatched eggs before, and Mr. B did it so many years ago that he forgot. So I started looking on my favorite online store to see what they had. I watched every youtube video I could find on the cheap small incubators.
I bought two of these incubators, it works, it’s small and inexpensive. This comes with its own wheel that turns the eggs for you, but you’re limited to how many eggs you can put in the thing. So we did a little hack I’ll tell you about in a minute.
Best Egg Incubator Backyard Chickens
To buy the very best incubator, you will have to pay more for it. But if you’re just looking to hatch a few of your own backyard chickens, then I think this little guy is perfect.
Best Egg Incubator For Backyard Chickens
We hatched 12 eggs hatched out of 12.
Fully Automatic Egg Incubator
This chicken egg incubator will turn the eggs for you, so it’s is a fully automatic egg incubator, but it will only hold 9 eggs. If you want to add more, you’ll have to read my Hack.
You might also like to read:
Chicken Coop For Baby Chickens
Crazy Chicken Lady Gifts
How To Keep Chicken Water From Freezing
How often do you turn eggs in an incubator
If you get this fully automatic one, then you won’t need to worry about that, but if you want to add more eggs, then you need to turn them yourself. Don’t use the insert inside, and just place a dozen eggs or so in the incubator.
My Hack Tip: Then, each day, you’re going to put a piece of wood or shampoo bottle under one end of the incubator. I have a towel wrapped around the incubator to keep in the heat and humidity. Each day you’ll move the bottle or wood to the other end.
So each day, you prop up the incubator on one side, then the next day prop up the other side. You want the prop to be at least the size of a shampoo bottle, any smaller, and it’s just not enough, and you won’t have a good hatch.
I also bought this little digital thermometer so I could see what the temp was inside the incubator. I just placed it, so it was facing the outside in the clear bottom.
You’ll want to candle the eggs 8 days after putting them in the incubator and throw out any that are not fertile.
Expert Tips for Incubating Chicken Eggs
My tip is to start out with the main 9 eggs and use the incubator just like it’s supposed to, then the next time, try your own hand at it by adding even more eggs. Make sure you keep enough water in the thing. It should be nice and steaming the days before they hatch.
2 or 3 days before they hatch, you don’t have to prop up the sides anymore. They should hatch on the 21st day.
I hope this will help you get some of those rare chicken eggs to hatch and help you find the best egg incubator for your backyard chickens. It really helped us to get up a great stock in our golden Sebright chickens.
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Hi! I'm Michelle. You can find me planning, cooking, and often wrangling chickens in my spare time (who am I kidding? I have no spare time). I am the CEO and creator for homesteadingforwomen.com. All posts are reviewed and updated personally by ME - if you have any questions, feel free to contact me here.
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