Can you or do you need to add moisture for hatching duck eggs, and can you hatch both duck and chick together?
1766954
I just keep it filled with water . I hatch ducks, turkeys, chicks,and quails. I love this incubator.
1766955
Yes! There is a dish on the bottom for that, and i would look up how to hatch both types of eggs, im pretty sure they need different humidity and tempatures, so more then likely no. I would read A LOT on what the eggs will need and the hatchlings as well before starting anything, eggs are pretty complicated, and it can be heart breaking when they dont hatch.
1332181
I am a bit of a Newbie too. I will ask my friend who has been helping me and answer again if he says different. I am not familiar with a hatch pad but there is not much room between the screen and the egg turner. You can remove the turner and just turn by hand to make more room. Also I don't know if the hatch pad is porous or if it would block or interfere with the humidity from below. None of my chicks got caught in the screen. A few got stuck on their backs in the egg turners. My biggest concern is that the heater coil on the lid can create a nasty burn. My friend burned his hand on it. Not much feathers on the little chicks just hatched and all wet! It never turned out to be a problem tho. I am a bit of a Newbie too. I will ask my friend who has been helping me and answer again if he says different. I am not familiar with a hatch pad but there is not much room between the screen and the egg turner. You can remove the turner and just turn by hand to make more room. Also I don't know if the hatch pad is porous or if it would block or interfere with the humidity from below. None of my chicks got caught in the screen. A few got stuck on their backs in the egg turners. My biggest concern is that the heater coil on the lid can create a nasty burn. My friend burned his hand on it.... » Read More I am a bit of a Newbie too. I will ask my friend who has been helping me and answer again if he says different. I am not familiar with a hatch pad but there is not much room between the screen and the egg turner. You can remove the turner and just turn by hand to make more room. Also I don't know if the hatch pad is porous or if it would block or interfere with the humidity from below. None of my chicks got caught in the screen. A few got stuck on their backs in the egg turners. My biggest concern is that the heater coil on the lid can create a nasty burn. My friend burned his hand on it. Not much feathers on the little chicks just hatched and all wet! It never turned out to be a problem tho. « Show Less
1692302
We don't use it for hatching eggs because the heat is not regulated properly. Maybe that has been corrected by now; I don't know. We tried one several years ago and the heating was too irregular to hatch eggs. Nancy Laird RN
857049
Never having cooked or even handled a duck egg, I cannot properly answer your question...sorry.
1332178
When you remove the egg turner on day 18 put a small towel on the screen. The chick's feet won't be able to go through the towel but humidity will.
2021643
We use it for both chickens and ducks. It works fine for ducks, but the ducks do need a longer soak in the scalder than chickens. We find that we have to pull a few pin feathers by hand, but the vast majority of feathers are removed by the machine. As for chickens, it works very well and we are very impressed.
2068071
Not really. I have to watch when I put my large Pekin duck eggs. How much bigger are they than duck eggs? I place small circle with marker on egg too make sure all roll. Hope that helps.
1192974
I attempted goose eggs in my brinsea mini advance. I could barely, barely fit 4 in there. You will have to hand turn them. Plus, once one hatches, you'll need to take it out pretty quickly because they're so huge when they finally get free of the egg. I would definitely do it again.
1626205
This advice is probably a little late for you, but here it is for next time. Here are 2 things to keep in mind. (1) It really is important to run the incubator for 2 to 3 days before setting the fertilized eggs in it. Keep a careful record of the temperature for that time and interact with the temperature setting knob until the incubator keeps the the internal temperature to plus or minus 1 degree of the desired temperature (which is dependent on what species of bird you are trying to hatch). If you are unable to keep the internal temperature within the desired range, and you are keeping the incubator in a draft-free place with an ambient temperature of 60 to 80 degrees F, then there is a good chance that the thermostat of the incubator could be faulty. (2) Try starting the temperature stabilization process with the thermostat knob at the mid-point of the scale. If the temperature just keeps rising and never stabilizes, then your unit almost certainly has a thermostat or other problem. I would then return it the the manufacturer for repair. When I got my incubator, it came with an inexpensive red fluid thermometer. I wanted more accuracy than it could provide, so I purchased 2 additional digital thermometers. They cost about US$15.00 (on Amazon, I think) each and one of them even had a humidity indicator on it. Humidity is as important as temperature when hatching poultry. The picture published of you incubator looks as though yours does not have an internal fan. If yours can be retrofitted with a fan, you would be able to maintain a more even internal temperature in a properly working incubator. I hope this helps you and good hatching!
1125701
Yes, you can add eggs later. The later ones will obviously hatch later if you have brought the early up to temp when you put them in.
400200
Mostly the difference will be in the size of the eggs. I expect the bird eggs are smaller than chicken and so I would use the quail version of the tray. But, other than that I would say yes.
1671863
I put my chickens in and lock it to protect them from predators. They will not eat or drink until morning. If you don't get up early to let them out, leave them some water. If you're housing ducks, they must have some water at all times.
672891
What do you do just buy the egg case? what do you have to do to hatch them?Do you water them? I live in rancho Cucamonga ca.
1125705
I would reconsider about getting this one. But if you do decide to get this one, good luck:)! Hope you have success. This incubator requires a LOT of work maintaining the temperature, humidity and turning the eggs. It comes with instructions. I would put all of the eggs in together. It is very difficult when you have different eggs on different days.
2238261
Hi...according to the instructions it can incubate duck eggs; however, the Brinsea Mini is just that, a "mini". From my own personal experience, I incubated and hatched 3 chicken eggs in it and that was all I would ever do. It got very crowded quickly, and if you're considering it for hatching duck eggs I wouldn't put more than two at a time in it. Duck eggs are much larger than chicken eggs, and based on that, I'm sure ducklings are bigger too. This is my opinion only, but if I were you, I wouldn't do it.
2228099
For 2 eggs I have always used 2T. powder & 2T. water. But it might be that the extra water could affect the consistency.
1514540
Hello Margaret, This is Lori. I believe the turkey eggs would work, without the turner. You will just have to make sure you turn them at least 3 times a day, for the first 18 days. I absolutely love this incubator! At our former residence, I only had to use a minimal amount of water to maintain the temperature. I also don't open the lid to add water. I use aquarium tubing with a 5 cc syringe and insert the tubing through the vent hole into the water troughs. It is very helpful if you also have a room hygrometer to measure the humidity/temp in the room, besides the hygrometer/temp on the lid. The more humidity you have in your room, the less water you will need to add to your incubator. I would first start by turning the incubator on and don't put the eggs or water in the incubator. Regulate the temp first. It may take 24 hours. At my other residence, I hardly had to add any water at all, only about 10 ccs of water every couple of days. On day 19, I added a little bit more water, around 20 ccs and monitored the incubator temp/humidity closely. You want to see some condensation on the windows on day 19-21. My temp was at 99.5 for the first 18 days. The humidity was at 60% the first 18 days. On day 19, with adding a little bit more water, I increased the humidity between 65-70%. My temp still stayed 99.5 on the last 3 days. I looked at both hygrometers/temps, the one in the room and the hygrometer/temp with the incubator. I always had an excellent hatch rate with this incubator. When I used the turner, I would have 40 eggs in there, and hatched 38 of them with success! Best of luck to you! Oh, by the way, I just wanted to say that I didn't follow the directions with how they tell you to fill the troughs. The location of where you have your incubator and room temp/humidity really does make a difference.