Speak to me of Brinsea Mini's

I was reading a post started by Farmer Bob and I decided to do an Ebay search foe Brinsea's and I stumbled upon the Brinsea Mini. This looks like a great little bator for my purposes as I would really only hatch out a few chicks at a time for 4H and what not. What are your thoughts and feeling towards this particular machine that might sway me towards starting a savings pile for a birthday present bator for me?

LOVED MINE!! it was awesome. I actually ended up selling mine to the private kindergarten for their yearly hatching fun. they work amazing, great hatches.

only downsides.

the well in the middle for humidity. if you get a dumb chick hatching they will stuff their heads in it and cant come back up. I solve this by either covering it with some cheesecloth or using pieces of sponge that I toss away afterwards.

and the hatching. once the egg turner is out, I personally think that the bottom is a little slippery (not sure if the new ones are the same, but the ones I bought four years ago were like this) so I solved this one --again, super easy!-- by just putting a few pieces of that rubber backed matting on the floor of the incubator (you know, the type for keeping your dishes from sliding around in cupboards and stuff like that?) this is just a personal feeling, that the floor is too slippery, not so much a fault of the incubator


huge plus for brinsea's. if that egg was good going in, you could almost guarantee it would hatch!! I always always have the best hatching rates with mine (I had two mini's and the huge cabinet)

in the mini, you can put seven normal eggs. six if they are a bit bigger. they will also hold four duck eggs depending on the size of the egg.


I seriously loved my brinsea. I am actually buying myself a replacement this week! (I had sold mine three years ago due to some health struggles)

The only complaint I have heard is once you start using it, it is too small! You will want to hatch more!

Schipperkesue wrote:The only complaint I have heard is once you start using it, it is too small!  You will want to hatch more!

OOH!! that too!! in fact, I told myself-- "self. you are only going to order a mini. you dont need anything more. anything else hatched can do so under the damn broody hens."

and here I am looking at the 24 hatchers. because. well. because. I know that seven is never enough!!!! chances are by friday, I will just order the 20 series adv with the pump. its just so dummy proof when you get the whole works, makes for much more relaxed hatching for me (I just never had success with anything else!)

A couple Christmases ago my then 8yr old son got a mini advance as a gift.  Best gift ever! he still loves it and hatch rates are amazing in it.  Takes up no space, incredibly simple and easy to watch everything.  My son has done quite a few hatches in it from Cayuga and Buff ducks, large fowl and bantam chicks, and last year he did a dzn cortunix quail as his 1st 4-H animal project.  

As to the concerns that Lanaire brought up, she is right although we've never had any babies get their head in there it is slippery.  We put marbles in the water cup when we fill it for hatching.  We cut out a paper towel circle to place on the bottom about 2 days before chicks hatch and 3 days before ducklings hatch.  I bet the drawer stuff would work great I use it in other incubators but find the paper towel easier to clean up   Oh and if doing ducklings I find we like to up the humidity by wetting the paper towel a bit

my sons KD classroom has one and we hatched duck eggs last year and it was great!  100% hatch the best one all year!

I would say any size brinsea you will be pleased with.