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It doesn’t matter for what purpose you are breeding quails: commercially or, as they say, “for the home, for the family,” you will certainly need an incubator. This article is about how to make a quail incubator with your own hands.
What is an incubator used for?
Natural incubation is sometimes not feasible. There is not always a mother quail available. In addition, one bird can hatch from 12 to 15 eggs. The market price of chicks is quite high, so many people consider it advisable to purchase hatching eggs.
What are incubator circuits? These are hermetically sealed boxes with thermal insulation, equipped with heating and egg trays. The design is not particularly complicated, and you can make it yourself. Advantages of making your own quail incubator.
- Low material costs.
- You can select the incubator parameters based on your own needs.
- You can make a non-volatile design if, for example, you have a gasoline generator on your farm.
If you have chosen a finished product, then there may be the following options.
- A foam incubator is the most economical option.They are not particularly durable, but their price is low. Before you decide to buy an expensive industrial incubator, calculate how quickly it can pay for itself. It makes sense to buy a cheaper option first, and once you gain experience with bird breeding, buy something more substantial.
- An incubator with automated egg turning is quite expensive. Such equipment is used on large quail farms. For a home mini-farm, an automatic unit is unlikely to be profitable. In addition, practice shows that most often it is the system “responsible” for turning the eggs that fails.
Self-execution
To make your own home incubator, a broken refrigerator or an ordinary cardboard box is suitable. In the latter case, care should be taken to maintain heat. In addition, there are quite strict requirements for the microclimate of the room where incubation will take place.
- The air temperature is at least 20 degrees.
- The temperature inside the incubator varies between 37 and 38 degrees.
- Optimal air humidity is from 60 to 70%.
- There is no need to turn the eggs for the first two days. From days 3 to 15, eggs are turned over every 2 hours to prevent the embryo from sticking to the shell.
- 2 days before hatching, the temperature in the incubator is kept at 37.5 degrees. The humidity level is 90%. Eggs need to be periodically irrigated with a spray bottle.
- The time the eggs spend in the incubator before hatching is 17 days. The hatched chicks remain in the incubator for another day for complete drying and acclimatization.
Incubators must also have openings. If you need to adjust the air temperature and humidity inside the device, they are opened and closed.The body of the device can be made of chipboard, MDF, fiberboard or plank. For thermal insulation, it is best to use roll-type insulation material.
For incubation Choose eggs that are medium in size and not cracked. Before placing eggs in incubators, view them with an ovoscope to ensure that the egg contains an embryo.
There are several options for making a homemade incubator for quails.
First option
Needed for work.
- Box.
- Plywood.
- Foam sheets.
- Metal mesh.
- 4 incandescent lamps 15 W.
This method is clearly shown in the video:
The procedure is as follows.
- Line the box with plywood and insulate it with polystyrene foam.
- Make several holes with a centimeter diameter in the bottom part.
- Make a glass window in the lid to control the condition of the eggs and the microclimate in the box.
- Just below the cover, mount the electrical wiring with sockets (they are located in the corners).
- Approximately 10 cm from the bottom, secure the tray with eggs, placing it on foam supports. Stretch a metal mesh over the top of the tray. The incubator is ready.
Second option
If you find it difficult to figure out the blueprints for a quail incubator with your own hands, an excellent device can be made from an old refrigerator. It is quite roomy and has the required degree of tightness. Instead of shelves for storing food, trays with eggs are placed. Foam plastic is used to insulate the walls. Holes are made in the walls for air exchange and incandescent lamps are installed. You can turn the eggs using a metal lever.
Third option
We adapt an old cabinet for a homemade quail incubator: plywood or chipboard sheets. An old TV stand will work great. Doors made of durable glass allow you to control the incubation. Ventilation holes are drilled in the tabletop of the cabinet. A heat fan is used to raise the temperature inside the incubator. A metal mesh is placed on the floor of the device. To fasten the egg trays, a steel plate with movable fasteners is used. Attach a handle through the hole drilled in the wall, with which you can turn the eggs every two hours.
Fourth option: incubation device in a bucket
This method of setting up a quail incubator is great for a small number of eggs. All you need is a plastic bucket with a lid. The procedure is as follows.
- Cut a window in the lid.
- Place a heat source at the top of the bucket (1 light bulb is enough).
- Place an egg net in the middle of the bucket.
- Drill ventilation holes at a distance of 70-80 mm from the bottom.
- To maintain the desired level of humidity, pour some water into the bottom of the bucket.
Periodically changing the tilt of the bucket, you transfer the eggs. It is not recommended to tilt the bucket at an angle exceeding 45 degrees.
Some useful tips
When setting up an incubator for a home quail farm yourself, you need to adhere to certain rules. Here they are.
- You should not control the air temperature using an outdoor thermometer. Its error is too great. A regular medical thermometer is much more accurate.
- Place the thermometer close to the eggs, but without touching them.
- If you are making a large incubator for a large number of eggs, then it is advisable to use a fan heater to equalize the air temperature.
- Monitor the temperature at approximately equal intervals.
Maybe industrial-made devices look more solid. However, practice shows that homemade devices are cheaper, easier to operate and much more practical than finished products.
I was lucky, when I decided to raise quails, I only had to change the tray in the sititek incubator, and not buy a new one. It turned out that you can earn a lot of money from quail eggs, even if you deal with them only in the summer-autumn season.