Farm Innovators Model 4200 Circulated Air Incubator with Automatic Egg Turner

So far this incubator is doing exactly what it should be - we candled eggs on day 8 (son and husband couldn't wait until day 10), and eggs are developing as expected. We have 2 - 3 eggs out of 24 that are questionable, but it is early, and they simply may not be fertile as we got 12 eggs locally from a friend. Sometimes the rooster doesn't get them all - they sure try though! Please follow the directions - set up incubator 2 days prior to setting your eggs and you will have temperature regulated. I have not had any issues with temperature since finding the 99.5 mark and leaving it alone. I have not purchased extra thermometer for humidity, we live near Mississippi River in Illinois, we have plenty of humidity. I have watched this on the machine and only added a little water once after initial set up. I did take out the bottom plug after adding that water as the humidity shot way up, after about 2 - 3 hours it had settled down and I put the plug back in. The other 12 eggs we got from very nice lady across the river who breeds/raises Silkies and Chochins. All are developing. She told us she has this exact same incubator and it has worked like a charm. No failures or problems. This model from Amazon does not come with a candler - Farm Innovators Website seems to show it should be included, but I still paid less on Amazon than this same incubator at the Farm & Home Store. After reading the instructions, I wondered about the plugs and the fan. You leave them in, except in the instance above when I needed to lower humidity and of course once the chicks are piping. I did call Farm Innovators and they were very helpful - if you have any questions about your incubator, I would suggest you call them.

The unit is very light and compact. It is very easy to use. It is easy to maintain the temp and humidity at a pretty constant level. The temp dial is very sensitive. You must make small adjustments and then give time for the temp to settle. We use a digital remote thermometer and it shows that the gauge on the unit is a little off, so we just stick with our digital device. One thing that we do not like about it is that when we raised the humidity to around 72% for the last 3 days, the windows in the unit stay fogged up, making viewing difficult. We are in our first hatch with this unit as I write this and at the moment we have hatched 19 out of 24 Barred Rock eggs. Not bad at all for some beginners like us. Looking inside the unit it seems that clean up will also be a chore but we will see how that goes.

First day I plugged it in and I couldn't even tell it was running it was so quiet. However, I followed directions to add the water as it says fill all wells full. That was a mistake. Could not keep the humidity under 60. It stayed around 70 actually, even with both plugs out. The temperature stayed steady once it was set right. But it takes awhile to stablize. Don't rush it. Just let it warm up and turn it off by barely turning the knob when it reaches your desired temp. I bought a digital thermometer for peace of mind, but once the unit temp stablized, the thermometer on the unit works properly. The second day the temp was very stable and it was doing great, except the humidity was still way too high. So i opened it up, took out the egg racks (full of eggs) and dumped the water out. Dried it and then just filled two wells (the smaller side ones). Plugged it back in and now its vibrating. Both the fan and the egg turner are vibrating. I tried unplugging and plugging in several times to no avail. Tried redistributing the eggs to no avail. The temp seems to look decent, not quite stable yet but i'll give it some time it should stablize. Both plugs are out and humidity looks much better. Around 55-60%. I will probably let this batch hatch out and send it back for an exchange or refund. The vibration may cause death to the embryos. I don't expect a hatch rate over 50% as about half of my 35 eggs are old and dirty anyway. I will report back on my hatch rate. Hopefully the vibration wont harm them. I'm worried about it. Three stars for now, may change that later, depending on hatch success or failure. My advice is to buy a digital thermometer that has a probe you can put inside unit. Put it on the plastic card provided the holds the glass thermometer. Put the plastic card on top of the eggs in the center of the unit. Also, DONT fill all the wells. Start it out with no water or just one well filled. if humidity not high enough, leave plugs in. If too high take plugs out one by one to adjust. If not high enough after adjustment, its easier to add water than to take unit apart and take screen out and dump water and dry it.

This really does a great job. It is easy to use and we have had no problems at all. Use common sense and don't expect to jump in and get it right the very first time. When you start you will not get 100% hatched eggs, you could get a very low hatch rate until you experiment and learn how it works exactly. Read up on tips to hatch eggs first and then have fun. I suggest you turn your eggs by hand at leats 3 times daily, and make sure your humidity is up the entire time, if it gets dry they will not hatch. The first hatch we did started with around 30 eggs and ended with 6 chicks, we tried turn more and more humidity and each time our count increased. This last hatch we started with 20 eggs and had 19 chicks hatch. So we have learned the machne and the tricks it takes. Also do NOT use the temperature on the lid it is NOT even a reference. Use the internal thermometer laying on the eggs and keep it exactly at 99.5 hope this helps a little.

We were very excited to use this incubator in our Kindergarten classroom. Last year, we had a home made incubator that required us to turn the eggs manually throughout the day - this caused us to handle the eggs more frequently AND caused the temperature to fluctuate. We ended up with a 50% hatch rate. With the Pro Series Incubator, we received the egg turner as well - only ONE chick hatched (it walked crooked and died a few days later). None of the other 11 eggs hatched. Once we were well past their hatch date, we opened up a few and they were partially and fully developed, but never made it out of the egg (of course we did this without the children around). WHAT WENT WRONG?!

I am very satisfied with this incubator this is my first one and first time doing hatching eggs (had poultry for 13years & wanted to try hatching as a change) it comes with a candler and additional thermometer so you don't need to purchase anything further unless you plan on doing quail eggs then you will need the smaller turner unless turning by hand. The automatic turner fits in perfectly and I have had perfect temperature setting since plugging in. The reason four stars is it does take a few attempts to get the humidity correct, I found it better to not add any water . I would also recommend running a little longer than the 6-8 hours suggested as my humidity went from spot on to decrease to 30% so I added water which after several hours bumped it to 70%. It is perfectly controlled by the plugs in the top of the unit. I recommend this bator and for optimal set up I would suggest running in the basement. I currently have my first lot of hatching eggs in. It can be purchased cheaper at amazon.com, I got charged duties on top as well as a higher price in Canada. The seller I used is excellent!

THIS SEEMS TO BE A VERY GOOD CHEAPER BROODER

Fan was very loud from beginning, used it 5 times only and already doesn't work anymore. Fan goes off suddenly, then after shaking it works again. absolutely unreliable. Do not buy this item. Spent 20$ for fertile eggs and had to throw them out.

The incubator arrived intact and as expected, I like the fact a candling light was included. The dial thermometer on the lid is not at all accurate, but the bulb thermometer also included is. I like the built in Hygrometer. The unit is easy to clean and quiet. Once I got the thermostat set ( it takes a while ) the incubator performed as expected. Would I buy it again? Definatly a yes!