Meet the Brinsea Mini Advanced Egg Incubator. An incubator the takes almost all of the work and guessing out of chicken egg incubation.
What Urban Farm is complete without a few chickens? If you’re fortunate enough to have a Rooster in your flock you will at some point want to try your hand at hatching chicks. I’ll tell you now it is fun. A lot of fun as a matter of fact.
Most of us are pretty busy though and anything that can automate as much work for us as possible is greatly appreciated. And the Mini Advanced claims to do just that: Automate and simplify.
The incubator holds up to 7 chicken eggs at a time and has the following features:
- Automated temperature regulation (heating and cooling)
- Automated egg turning
- Auto stop egg turning
- Temperature Alarms (High and Low)
- Digital display of temperature, countdown, and alarms
- Fan assisted airflow
- 360 degree
visibility - 2 year guarantee
If you are interested in hatching other eggs there are alternate discs sold separately for smaller eggs.
Product Review
The norm is that Friday Gear Reports are just that: News on interesting survival and preparedness related gear. Typically there is not a product review attached. However, this one has the added benefit of also being a review. So let’s dive in…
First impressions of this egg incubator were favorable. The Mini Advanced has a sturdy construction and pleasing appearance. It doesn’t feel or look like it was put together in someone’s garage. It looks, well, actually pretty cool.
The interactions were very clear and easy to follow. They also included basic information about the process of egg incubation for a variety of birds and what to expect during the process. This, along with the digital display, made setup very quick–less than 5 minutes. The incubator was intended to handle hatching most eggs. Thus, all of the settings from duration, angle of egg turn, to temperature can be set as needed. Even the high and low temperature alarms can be set to anything you want.
After the Mini Advanced has been programmed, it takes approximately an hour to preheat before adding the eggs. Then, you wait…
As mentioned earlier, the Mini Advanced is almost completely automated. You basically set the unit up and forget about it for the duration of the process. The exceptions are occasionally adding a small amount of water to the unit and candling the eggs from time to time.
For twenty-one days (or whatever you set it to depending on the type of bird egg being incubated) the incubator maintains a perfect temperature and keeps the eggs turning.
On the nineteenth morning of my first run with the Brinsea Incubator I was greeted with the sound of peeps coming from all 7 eggs. Yes, there was a 100% success rate! It’s also important to note that I was using Ameraucana Chicken eggs. These are not exactly known for a high hatch rate.
Two weeks later all 7 chicks are alive, well, and doing what chickens do best: eating and pooping.
Selling at roughly $160, the Brinsea Mini Advanced Egg Incubator is not cheap. But the time savings, high success rates, and ease of use make the price tag completely worth it.