100 egg Kerosene Incubator/Hatcher Design Pains

I mentioned in a previous post that one of my projects in planning us a Kerosene Heated Egg Incubator/Hatcher. You can buy one from Lehman's. That's $400 I certainly don't have. They are more readily available overseas (i.e. Africa and India). And you can occasionally find an old used one a farmer is selling. So I've been looking for information about how to build one... that's been as difficult as if not more so than finding one for sale. As a digression, I'd rather like to build a solar one which DO EXIST.. in AFRICA! The problem is the information veritably nonexistent. So back to the topic on hand, a kerosene incubator is a more likely candidate at this time.

Informationwise, I've found two designs:

• A Kerosene Fired 180 egg cabinet incubator. Done by a gentleman in Haiti. (.pdf file)
• The Peace Corps Poultry Training Manual from 1981. (scroll to the end)

I like the simplicity of the Peace Corps design but their lack of dimensions and instruction makes it a little difficult. You have to do a little guesstimating. I prefer the thermostat wafer set up in the cabinet incubator. Whatever the case, I have a very good start on my detailed design. Lots of notes and a possible design on a manual egg turner ran on the horizontal plane similar to what you'd find in a HovaBator or such.

With just an egg tray, where I'd have to hand turn the eggs individually, it would fit around 100 chicken eggs, 80-100 duck eggs (depends on breed) or 40-50 goose eggs. Then, of course, a bazillion quail eggs... I've added a hatching cage to the design as well. This was a must after my first incubator design flaw (that's another story) of NOT having one.

It's my desire to keep y'all posted in its progress but you know how that can go...

February 2013

It's very frustrating when you start a post, get interrupted, then never finish. That's the state of my last unfinished post and those before it.

We've been rather busy to say the least. The days are getting longer and it was getting "springy" then this winter storm rolled through. We currently have 6" of heavy, wet snow on top of nice gooey mud. I think we're done with snow for a little bit, however, cold weather is settling in for now. How long is a big unknown as the weather forecast really can't even tell me for sure.

Current Projects:
-hot bed for starting garden transplants

Projects in Development:
-Greenhouse
-kerosene heated egg incubator