This information is has been taken from message boards or copied from mail I received. It is here to help compare bators before purchase. If you see your idea here and would like credit for it, or would like it removed, give me a yell...THANK YOU for the use of them.
In about 1960 we started hatching eggs. Our first incubator was a "Sunbeam". Sunbeam electric skillet, the small one about 6 inches square, made for frying one egg... kind of ironic, we lined it with a old cloth rag, put a thermometer in it, kept it at 101oF and hatched 4 Peking duck eggs. We turned the eggs by hand, don't think we payed attention to the humidity. I guess that falls under homemade instead of "Sunbeam"
The next few years we graduated to home built, plywood case Plexiglas window, wire bottom water pan for humidity, wafer switch thermostats, electric rod type heaters (don't know where dad found those). They worked so-so, still hand turned, no control on the humidity... hatched duck, goose, turkey, chicken, and bantam eggs.
Oh and of course the best incubator... the old Bantam setting hen, always better results, and no maintenance!
Later in the 60's we splurged and bought the Styrofoam, think it is a hovabator (see hova bator comments), worked better than the home builts.
In the 70's Mom picked up a Marsh Roll-X (see roll-x comments)
I currently use 3 GQF 1202 incubators (see GQF comments) for incubating and hatching.
