Homemade Incubator

Looking for a way to create a homemade incubator? Below is a comment that one of my frequent visitors, Ken H., made and I thought it worth sharing in a blog post. He goes into detail and also added a picture for the benefit of the D-I-Y person. He makes it sound easy. I’m not too sure about it but I applaud him for his success and also his willingness to share.

Homemade Incubator by Ken H.

Well, I’m incubating eggs. Twelve Jersey Giants in a home made incubator. The incubator is made from a Coleman cooler. I wanted to be able to control the temperature very closely without error so I went with a thermocouple type controller. A thermocouple type sensor works off a principal that for any given temperature there is a definite resistance (Ohm value). No calibration is ever necessary. Also, I wanted to control the output of the heat source (100 watt light bulb). So a dimmer switch was installed to maximize the on time of the bulb. Just enough power for the job.

The next issue was humidity. To solve this I fabricated a water pan that molded around the heat source (lightbulb). It heats the water thus increasing the ease of evaporation. A fan from a computer was employed as a circulating fan ensuring an even temperature throughout the incubator. Also, a wire frame was employed to conform a wick (old sock) to the fan. This allows me to move the wick further or closer to the circulating fan and control the humidity to a close degree.

A partition separates the hatching section from the mechanical section. There are holes drilled through the section allowing air to return. However the partition also provides a resistance to airflow and causes fresh air to be drawn into the heating section and warm air vents out an unsealed section of the hatching area,thus ensuring a constant intake of fresh air for ventilation.

I also fabricated an egg turner that allows a 90 degree span of motion, 45 degrees each way, without opening the incubator. Water is added through a fill tube and if overfilled an overflow drain prevents spilling water into the incubator. There is no need to open the bator to turn the eggs or to add water to the humidifier pan. The wick on the humidifier can be adjusted from the outside too.

Here’s a picture of the mechanical section of the incubator I built. Hope it will give some ideas for innovation to someone.

Good luck with your eggs! Let us know how they come out. Thanks for sharing Ken!

Tags: hatching eggs, homemade incubator