had to slightly alter my focus! i had some eggs in a commercial incubator so i could see what i liked on the commercial units and what i thought needed to be improved, but i messed my timing up and thought i had 3 days left before the hatch! but i didnt. So last night out they popped, so today i have to get a brooder sorted properly! eventually i have a temp controlled one in mind that will work from a central heat bank to a small number of units. main reason is we have been warned here that we get alot of power outs that can last anything upto a day, so far we have had three already although the longest was only 9 hours.
the main problem with the power out's is we only have a small diesel back up generator so every last Watt count's! the temporary brooder dad sorted last night uses a light bulb for heat (he had a hidden 100W bulb stashed!!!).
Bulbs work good for brooders but problem is one they are lit 24/7 which isnt really allowed on animal welfare grounds and they can fail, on the farm we used 150W infra red bulbs. But because we dont have the huge generator here that we had in devon i have to keep the power down, so i am making a heated box that has a number of fan outlets to blow warm air into the brooders and low wattage sol warming cable that snakes its way through the brooders.
i am looking for a total of 200W tops, so far tests have been good but now i have to concentrate on that before i can get back to the incubator and hatcher! on a happy note tho, dad dosnt want to get back into farming are keeping large numbers of birds, we are just having a competition, but he has said that if i build a decent incubator and hatcher and as long as i take care of them then he will sell the chicks at market for me and i can keep the profit!! so apart from saving for uni i will have cash to spend on my lab
anyway a pic of the new chicks