Best Egg Incubator for Chickens: What You Need to Know

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Raising your own chicks on the homestead is a great way to build a sustainable flock on the farm. While a broody hen can certainly get the job done with ease, the hens don’t follow any timetable.  Hens are also limited in the number of baby chicks they can hatch at one time. Depending on their size, a full-size chicken can successfully sit on 12 to 15 eggs. Depending on your goals for raising chickens, that may be plenty for you. However, an incubator allows you to control the timetable and the number of chicks you can hope to raise. Thankfully there are a lot of options when it comes to great egg incubators. The best egg incubator for chickens is one that meets your needs and budget to allow you to successfully raise chicks at home. 

Types of Incubators

While incubators come in a variety of capacity options and features that you may want to consider there are two main types of incubators. Still-air incubator and forced air incubator. Still-air incubators are incubators without a fan. They often need to be set to a higher temperature to create the right hatching temperature as the heat will not be circulated evenly throughout.  They maintain their humidity level well because the air is not moving. Often they are a cheaper option if your budget is tight. Forced-air incubators have a fan inside that circulates the heat, creating the ideal temperature throughout the entire incubator. Due to the fan, the humidity levels will fluctuate more. I have used both and both get the job done. The best egg incubator for your farm is the one that best fits your capacity needs and has the features you need to make hatching chicks at home easy! 

Incubator Requirements

The two biggest requirements during the incubation process are heat and humidity. Constant temperature is a must for developing embryos. For still-air incubators, the best incubation temperature should be 100.5° to 101.5° while forced air incubators require 99.5° to 100.5°. The humidity in an incubator changes during the 21-day incubation period. During the first 17 days of incubation, maintain a 50 to 55% humidity level. On day 18, increase the humidity level to 65 to 70%.

Incubator Features to Consider

Incubators vary in features. Automatic incubators do everything for you to ensure successful hatch rates. However, there are varying degrees of automatic features available and some features are easily managed manually to save you some money. When choosing an incubator here are some features to consider. 

Capacity

When it comes to hatching chicks, how many do you need? Most families only need 4 to 6 laying hens to produce enough eggs for a family of four. You will want consider this before loading the incubator with eggs! Choose the appropriate capacity based on your goal of raising chickens. Hatching chicks in the incubator is fun! It’s very easy to get carried away in the hatching process and disregard the logistical details of managing the chickens (or turkeys) you hatch. Trust me, I say this from experience! Brooders full of fuzzy chicks are adorable! Dealing with an abundance of fighting adult males and managing the female-to-male ratio on the farm can be hard work!  

Automated Features in an Incubator

All incubators come with a thermostat for heat control. A reliable incubator will be preset at the optimal temperature, but most can be adjusted based on your hatching needs. Be sure to consider the ambient temperature when choosing a location for your incubator and be sure to avoid a location in direct sunlight. Beyond temperature control, the other automated features in an incubator vary. 

Automatic Egg Turner

Eggs in an incubator need to be turned so the developing embryo won’t stick to the side of the shell. A mother hen would do this by her natural movement as she sits on the eggs. When using manual incubators you will need to manually turn the eggs at least three times a day, though five times a day is considered optimal. This is easily accomplished by marking an X on one side of the egg with a pencil and an O on the other side. Set a timer and quickly give all the eggs a turn. As a kid, I build a still air incubator in a cooler.  Turning the eggs is not hard or time-consuming, it just needs to be remembered for healthy development of the eggs. An automatic turner makes this process so much easier. Of the features that I would consider worth paying extra for, an egg turner is one of them! The best part is that even small incubators at affordable price points include an egg-turner. 

Humidity Control Vs Humidity Display

While some incubators have automatic humidity control, this is where the dollars start to really add up. Most user-friendly incubators will provide a humidity display, which doesn’t control the humidity. Be sure to read the descriptions thoroughly. A humidity display only shows the reading of the humidity sensor. It will be up to you to ensure the humidity level stays in a healthy range. In my opinion, manual humidity controls are easy enough to maintain. Keep your incubator in a place that you see it, and get in the habit of checking the humidity level several times a day.  Simply add water when needed. It’s always best to add a little and allow the humidity to increase before adding too much and creating too much humidity. 

Another consideration regarding humidity is how you add water to the incubator. Is the water reservoir accessible from the outside, or must you open the incubator to add water? 

Viewing Window

I have to admit that even at 51 years of age and having raised chickens most of my life, I still enjoy watching chicks hatch! A viewing window allows you to watch, take pictures and enjoy the hatching process. Hatching eggs is a great way to teach children about reproduction. Chicken eggs hatch in a relatively short period making the project enjoyable for the entire family. 

Built-In Egg Candler

Some incubators include a candler. Candling allows you to monitor the development of the developing chicks. Best used when the room is completely dark, place the egg on top of the candler. In lighter-colored eggs, you will be able to see the blood vessels of the chick and the developing embryo. In almost all eggs, you should be able to see the air sac. While some poultry enthusiasts candle eggs at regular intervals throughout the incubation process, I tend to candle eggs only after the hatch date has passed. Eggs that show no development can be pulled from the incubator. Very dark eggs, meaning the egg looks full, I usually allow an extra 2 to 3 days to hatch. If the chicken eggs don’t hatch by day 24, it’s safe to pull the eggs and dispose of them. 

What We Use

Here at Kowalski Mountain, we use an incubator frequently. Not only do we use the incubator to hatch chickens, but we also have used it to hatch turkeys. While there are many quality egg incubators on the market, we use the Manna Pro Harris Farms Nurture Right 360. This incubator has all of my must-haves: automatic egg turning and a 360° view of the entire incubator. It’s easy to program should you need to change the hatch duration for a different species. The water reservoir is on the outside and easy to fill. It’s also easy to clean to prepare for the next batch of eggs. It holds 22 chicken eggs, which is a decent amount for most homesteaders. We like this incubator so much, we bought two! 

My only complaint regarding this model is I find the egg turner hard to remove when it’s time to pull it out. On day 18, after the eggs have stopped rotating, it’s best to remove the egg turner so the chicks don’t injure themselves. While the egg turner can be removed with the eggs in place, I find it difficult. I gently remove all the eggs and then pull the egg turner off. This allows me to remove it without jostling the eggs more than I am comfortable doing. 

Using an Incubator

Using an incubator is simple. Before using it the first time, it is a good idea to clean the incubator. Once clean and dry, set the incubator up and add water to the reservoir. Allow the incubator to run for several hours to reach the optimal temperature and humidity before adding the fertile eggs. Be aware, that eggs purchased in the grocery store will not be fertile. Find a local neighbor or breeder to purchase fertile hatching eggs.  

Check the settings during the set up process. Chicken eggs are set to a hatch duration of 21 days. While the countdown timer allows you to be prepared for hatching day, its purpose is to control the egg turner. If you are hatching a different species of eggs, such as ducks, turkeys or pheasants, you have to adjust the countdown timer to reflect the correct hatch duration.   

When the incubator is ready, add fertilized eggs to the incubator. With the Nuture Right 360° be sure the point of the egg points to the center to allow the eggs to turn properly. I like to mark one egg with a large X on the blunt end of the egg so that I can monitor that the egg turner is turning as it should. 

Check the incubator at least once a day to monitor the humidity level and add water as needed. I keep my incubator in a location that I pass by frequently, This makes spot-checking the incubator a normal part of my routine. 

Happy Hatching!

Hatching eggs at home is an enjoyable project for the entire family! A good incubator is an affordable investment for most families. Hatching eggs at home is not only cheaper than purchasing day-old chicks, but it’s also a sustainable source to ensure you have chickens on the homestead.