My DIY incubator turned into a sauna last Friday night

I built a styrofoam incubator three weeks ago using a cheap thermostat and a lightbulb setup. Came home late Friday and saw the thermometer reading 108 degrees, my heart just dropped. Turns out the temp probe fell down into the egg crate so it was reading the air wrong but cooking the eggs directly. I lost 7 out of 12 eggs, only 3 chicks made it out. Has anyone else had a sensor placement fail on them like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa36827d ago

Wait, are you sure you lost 7 out of 12 eggs and only got 3 chicks? That math sounds like 10 eggs total, not 12. Or did I miss something?

riley_price27d ago

The sensor dropping into the crate basically turned your setup into an oven since it thought ambient temp was fine while the bulbs cooked the eggs directly. Try taping the probe to the side of the incubator at egg level so it can't fall or shift, that way it reads the actual egg temp not the air around them. Might be worth running a test batch with some cheap store eggs first just to confirm your setup is stable before you put valuable ones in there.