Learnings of a First Timer

Written by Patrick Lisle Posted by Lisa Broadbent I have rescued many birds in my time and for some reason they all have come with scaly leg mites. I have a quick and safe way to deal with this and help your birds heal with a little time and dedication. While your new bird/birds are in quarantine to watch for any illnesses or unseen issues you can smother their legs in Vaseline. This will not only smother the little mites but it will allow their legs to heal and the scales to come off over time. I have had this take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. Check on them daily and keep their legs covered and you will soon have one less chicken problem on your hands.

At this time of year students in every educational setting are setting up data charts, loading incubators and hoping that each egg will hatch. They might be homeschooled, attending classes virtually or back to in person classes. No matter what form of schooling the children in your life are attending right now, there is a good chance that some of them will be incubating chicks. 

Because I never did this project in school and I am not yet a parent, I learned about this through my job here at Incubator Warehouse. I got so excited hearing about all the plans teachers and parents had for these upcoming hatches, and loved chatting with them about which of our products would make it easiest on the

NOTE: Most of my research and what I learned to complete the following challenge came from the Learning Center Tab on this very website. I am telling you this, so I do not have to keep saying it over and over in the following story.

I joined the Incubatorwarehouse.com team in January 2018 as an intern. I grew up on a small farm but had never incubated any eggs before. My family had always bought baby chicks from the local feed store when we needed to replenish the flock. When I began my internship, it came with a challenge entitled: The Incubation Challenge.

Challenge Rules:

1. We could choose any tabletop incubator we carried or had available (lots of other brands and samples they have acquired and tested over the years were on a shelf in the office.)
2. We had our choice of eggs to incubate
3. We could not get any help from other employees. All our information and education had to be acquired

Proper temperature and humidity levels are very important for a successful incubation. If either one of these numbers are significantly off it can ruin an entire incubator full of eggs. In this blog post, we will go over 5 tips for more accurate manual humidity control while incubating. Make sure you have done your research and understand the basics of incubation, it is important to have some knowledge of what you are doing before you even think about firing up your incubator.

1. Making sure you have the proper tools is important to any successful incubation. To properly read your humidity levels you will want to use a hygrometer. This is a tool for measuring humidity levels and is a necessity for incubation. Accurately knowing your humidity levels will help to increase hatch rates.
2. Most incubators come with a built-in water reservoir in the base of the unit…many of these bases have several small reservoirs for holding water. We suggest starting with the smalle

Proper temperature and humidity levels are very important for a successful incubation. If either one of these numbers are significantly off it can ruin an entire incubator full of eggs. In this blog post, we will go over 5 tips for more accurate manual humidity control while incubating. Make sure you have done your research and understand the basics of incubation, it is important to have some knowledge of what you are doing before you even think about firing up your incubator.

1. Making sure you have the proper tools is important to any successful incubation. To properly read your humidity levels you will want to use a hygrometer. This is a tool for measuring humidity levels and is a necessity for incubation. Accurately knowing your humidity levels will help to increase hatch rates.
2. Most incubators come with a built-in water reservoir in the base of the unit…many of these bases have several small reservoirs for holding water. We suggest starting with the smalle

Most of us have seen the aftermath of a successful hatch and the toll it takes on our nice clean incubators. After your hatch you might find all kinds of nasty stuff in your incubator ranging from chick fuzz to egg shell pieces and even chick poo. Guess what? Someone will need to clean that out to preserve your incubator and prepare for your next hatch but don't worry, although the task may seem daunting, we have a few tips to help simplify and streamline the process.

1. First thing you will want to do after you have finished your hatch is to unplug your incubator and let it cool to room temperature. Once it has cooled down you can disassemble the incubator and get it ready to be washed. You will want use warm water and a mild dish washing detergent to wash each part of your incubator, this includes the lid, base, mesh floor, water tray, and in some cases the egg turner. You do not need to soak the incubator but rather use a cloth or sponge that you can dip into the wash

Spring time is a big rush for hatching eggs. As a company that sells egg incubators, we definitely take notice. Now that it’s summer some may ask: “Did I miss the window of opportunity? Is it too late to hatch my eggs?” The answer is… it depends.

The first thing to consider is the type of bird you want to hatch. Chickens will Generally lay eggs for most of the year. They'll stop laying when they start molting and will really slow down egg production in those months with less sunlight. The rooster will do his business year round.  As a very broad average hens will generally produce about 250 eggs per year. This heavily depends on the breed of the Chicken. Geese, on the other hand, will only lay eggs in the spring, as well as many breeds of Duck.  

The second thing to consider is your

We sell a variety of different incubator thermostats, all of which will ultimately get the job done. Two of our most popular thermostats are the IncuStat Basic and the IncuStat Advanced. They come as an individual units or part of the IncuKit XL for cabinet incubators. A common question we receive is “Well which one should I get?” They both automatically regulate the temperature; they are both accurate, both digital… So what’s the difference? The main difference is in the way they regulate the temperature.

The Basic thermostat is considered an on/off thermostat. It will simply give full power to the heater when it is under the set temperature and then cuts the power to the heater when it reaches the set temp. Because of this there are generally some temperature swings. BUT the thermost

Raising Ducks has many advantages, as do Chickens. They both lay eggs, they both provide meat and they are generally raised in the same way. My goal in writing this blog is not to tell you that one is better than the other, but rather to show the differences between Ducks and Chickens, pros and cons of Ducks and to clear up common misconceptions about Ducks.

Differences between Ducks and Chickens

Aside from the obvious differences between Ducks and Chickens there are a few key differences to consider if you are interested in raising Ducks.  First are the eggs. Duck eggs, for the most part, are more “yolky” then those of a Chicken. Duck eggs are slightly larger than Chicken eggs as well. Other than that they both taste the same. Many chefs actually prefer to use Duck eggs for Pastries. If you want to know the reason why, just ask your local pastry Chef because I don’t know. When it comes to egg prod

Having an accurate, reliable thermometer is crucial to having a good hatch. I recommend not using the bulb/red liquid thermometers that may be included with your incubator. The best place for those is the garbage. You can go to Wal-Mart and buy one for $10. Although this may be great for givng you an idea of the indoor temperature of your home, it is not designed to work in the 99.5 degree range for incubation.

If you ask me the IncuTherm Plus is the thermometer to use. This thermometer reads both temperature and humidity. The
temperature is rated to +/- 1 degree Fahrenheit in accuracy. A very helpful feature with the IncuTherm Plus is that it has a remote sensor, which allows you to place the senor where you need it in the incuabtor with the display/controls on the outside. When I used this thermometer I was using a HovaBator 1602N, the fe