In the last few weeks I’ve constructed the Hexahatch egg incubator and am now testing it. Here are some pictures of how to make it:

It started with Marcin drawing up the basic idea.


Then I worked the sketch into a design.

When we were satisfied with the initial design, we got the 4 inch drainage pipe for the egg holders and I cut it into sections.

I drilled holes and attached the pipe sections with small bolts. One of the sections came out wrong so instead of one solid piece in the middle I just used two smaller sections on the ends which worked okay.

I drilled holes in the caps for the rod.

I cut the sheet of OSB for the box. It was designed to be several equally sized pieces.

I attached the OSB pieces together by pre-drilling holes and then screwing them together.

I cut the sheet of insulation and put it in the box.

I drilled the 2×4′s and bushings and attached them.

I tried putting the threaded rod through the egg holder and the bushings. The egg holder is fixed to the treaded rod with washers and nuts.

But we found that the vertical 2×4′s weren’t stable enough on their own, so we had to change the design to have the rear bushing be directly on the box frame, and the front bushing on a piece of OSB attached to a horizontal 2×4. The lights and thermostat are attached to the horizontal 2×4 and OSB support which can be removed for cleaning and maintenance. The plan was to have metal pieces through slats in the tubes that slide out, but we didn’t have anything at the moment so I just used some wire to hold the eggs in. It looks odd, but it seems to work. The temperature is holding steady at around 99-100 degrees F.

The fan is from an old broken inverter, it’s like any small computer fan. It needs it’s own transformer plug though, as the regular electrical current will fry the motor.

We don’t have the motor and coupler yet, so I just attached a manual turning handle for testing.

I attached the front door with a 2×4 and some old hinges. Plus, I put in a water basin inside to keep up the humidity. And that’s it, it seems to be working fine so far. I added 54 eggs on April 26th, so we should be able to count our new chickens when they hatch around May 16th. I’ll continue to refine the design and construction procedure and work on an open business plan. I’m looking for reviews of most of the main incubators on the market, has anyone seen a comprehensive review of all of them?

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Categories: Construction, Open Source Chicken Incubator

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