Brinsea Octagon 20/40 at The Easy Chicken Poultry and Supply

Here you'll find a little "above and beyond" support for the Brinsea Octagon 20 (Image 1) and Octagon 40 (Image 2) Incubators by Brinsea. It's offered as a decision making tool if you're just considering a new Brinsea, a quick start guide if you already have, or ongoing support for those of us who are already fortunate enough to have made the plunge.

The Octagon 20 and Octagon 40 are identical for all intents and purposes, the 40 is simply twice the size of the Octagon 20. The Octagon 40 is the most popular incubator that we offer, and for good reason. Reason #1 - It's simply the finest small incubator on the market today. Reason #2 - Simplicity. It's easy to set up, easy to use, and easy to maintain. Reason #3 - Size to cost ratio. We use Octagon 40's extensively here, and I hope to show some tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of your incubator.

There are only a handful of "add-ons" to be concerned with when considering the Octagon 40. There's really only two "must have's" The first is the autoturn cradle (Image 3). The second is the wet bulb hygrometer. It's always a good idea to have extra wick for your hygrometer so you can keep it fresh. If you're working with sensitive eggs, the Humidity Management Module will definately help, and the Alarm Module is a very good idea if you are working with extremely valuable eggs.

For our purposes here, I'm going to be working with the incubator, cradle and hygrometer.

Putting your new bator together is easy enough. The cradle requires a good hefty screwdriver and some muscle. The hygrometer requires a little screwdriver and some finesse.

The cradle comes packed a motorized end (Image 4), a plain end, two rods (base bars) and four screws. The picture on the left is pretty self-explanatory. The rods slide over the stubs on the ends. The unit is not "end specific", nor are the rods.

An important thing here is that you need a good, stout screwdriver that fits the phillips slot in the screw. A cheap, poorly fitting screwdriver will ruin the screws and won't allow you to properly assemble the cradle. The screws require a lot of muscle to turn in tightly. Be careful not to slip and stab yourself :)

All the working parts of the autoturn cradle are located in one end. If you look carefully, you'll see that both ends are identical, less parts. That's smart engineering. It lends to simplicity. Fewer parts means fewer things to break and less parts to stock.

The small part that connects the shaft of the turner motor to the gear shaft is called the short link. It can be seen near the bottom of Image 4. This is an important feature. It's actually designed to break if the incubator is ever pushed against a wall, or something comes in contatct with the incubator that prevents it from turning. It's a good thing because it will prevent the much more costly turner motor from breaking. It's bad because you'll likely need to replace it along the way. I've broken a number of them along the way, so I keep a few extras laying around. They are inexpensive, readily available and easily obtained through Brinsea or myself.

You'll probably notice that your new cradle and incubator like to make noises when they're running. They like to "hop and pop". The noises are caused by the friction between the pin on the plain end (Image 5) of the cradle and the slot in the body of the incubator base (Image 6).

I've tried three ways to remedy the situation...

First I tried dry graphite (a pencil lead). I applied it to the area where the base slot met the pin on the cradle end. It worked well, but didn't last long.

Next I tried waterproof silicone grease. It's the type of grease that's used on faucet washers and the like. It's long lasting and stiff, but it didn't work very well at all, and didn't last long.

I then tried plain old vaseline. It worked fabulously and lasted much longer than I'd have guessed. Whenever I hear one of the bators skip or notice that it's not moving in a nice fluid fashion, I grab the jar and grease all of the incubators. I only use a tiny dab in the base's slot. It just takes a minute, and it'll easily extend the life of my turner motor and short link.

If you've put your cradle together and installed your hygrometer, you're ready to fill the incubator with water and adjust the temperature.

Place the base on the cradle and fill the troughs in the base (Image 10) about half way with water. Don't fill the troughs to the top with the incubator sitting level, or they'll spill out and the water will come through the vent holes in the base. If the incubator is on its' side as shown in Image 11, it will give you a good reference as to how much water you can put in the troughs before you have a mess.

Plug the incubator in, and everything will power on. You'll want to let the incubator run for about an hour before you make any temperature adjustments. This will allow the water in the base to warm and the temperature will stabilize.

Odds are that your incubator will be set right at or near 37.6 degrees Celsius. All of mine have been. That's perfect for hatching chicks. If not, you can make small adjustments by turning the red temperature adjustment trimpot on the side of the incubator top (Image 12). One degree Celcius is about 1/4 of a turn. Once you've made an adjustment, lift the top off the incubator for a moment and wait an hour before making any more adjustments. The Octagon 40 holds rock-steady temperatures. Once you've set it, you really should forget about the dial.

The pictures on the left show the packed hygrometer (Image 7), the built hygrometer (Image 8), and the location for installation (Image 9).

The new hygrometer will come with instructions. They're pretty vague, but the installation isn't al that complex. I'll try to expand a little here.

First you'll choose the end that you'd like to install the hygrometer. There will be two small plastic pin/plugs that are holding a blank in place. You have to push on the center of the plug from the inside of the lid to disengage it. Once you've removed the pin plugs, the blank will be free. Put the plugs and blank away for safe keeping should you ever need the.

Using the screws provided, mount the wet bulb mounting bracket to the outside of the hole with the longest flat side down.

Now it's time for the wick battle. Tie a knot in the end of the wick. The knot will reside inside the wet bulb's water resevoir cup when you're finished. The wet bulb resevoir snaps onto the raised circle on the wet bulb body. I use a straightened out paper clip to force the wick through the tube on the back of the body. The end of the wick that you've pushed through will ultimately be placed on one of the thermometers.

Now that you've got the wick in place, slide each of the thermometers into place. They install by pushing the bulb of the thermometer through the resevoir side of the body. Push them through until you've reached the writing on the thermometer.

Slide the wick over one of the bulbs. I like to push about 2 inches of wick over the bulb and up onto the thermometer.

Now you can fill the resevoir with water and snap it onto the body. Excess wick belongs inside the resevoir, not inside the incubator. If it's inside the incubator, it will just help to empty the resevoir prematurely. Distilled water is recommended, but I use tap water. Tap water will soil your wick prematurely, but It's not a big matter to me. It's easier to use and wick is relatively inexpensive compared to distilled water.

Snap the wet bulb into the mounting bracket with the thermometers on top and you're ready to go.

An Octagon 40 comes with two trays. An Octagon 20 comes with one tray. Each incubator is packed with divider slats (Image 13,14 and 15) that allow almost infinate adjustment for any size of eggs.

It's important to place the slats so that the eggs are not forced into the slot. They should not be set so that the eggs roll freely, either. The eggs should be able to move slightly from side to side, or not at all. Depending on the variations in the size of like eggs, the margin can be up to 1/8 inch or so. That's fine.

You don't want the eggs to be able to roll so far as to build sufficient speed and force to break the eggs when the cradle rocks them.

If you are hatching eggs of unlike size (such as chicken and pheasant) in the same setting, you can create different sized partitions for each type of egg.

In order to maximize your incubator's capacity, some planning may be in order. You can experiment with sizes and tray settings until you've found what works best for you and your needs. It's very easy to set bantam eggs and large fowl eggs in the same setting by adjusting the slats. It's a bit more difficult to arrange a number of sizes such as quail, bantam, large fowl, ducks and goose in the same setting. It makes it difficult to maximize capacity. This is where the extra space of the Octagon 40 plays a large role. There's more area, and it allows more flexibility for setting unlike sized eggs in the same setting.

Once you've placed all your hatching eggs in the tray, be sure that they've all come to room temperature before setting them in the incubator. Setting cold eggs in an incubator is an easy way to ruin perfectly good hatching eggs. The rapid expansion of the egg's interior during heating can (and often will) rupture fragile membranes. Once ruptured, bad things will be coming soon :)

I'm not going to carry on too much about humidity at this point. Adjusting humidity is covered at Incubating

What I will do is describe a few ways to adjust the humidity in your incubator using it's features.

1. The troughs (Image 10).

The Octagon 40 has four troughs that hold water to aid humidity. The Octagon 20 has two. By filling all the troughs, you'll maximize the surface area, thus gaining the trough's maximum effectiveness. Fill less troughs, you'll have less surface area and less humidity.

2. The vent (Image 16).

By adjusting the vent on your incubator's top, you can "tweak" the humidity in your bator. I like to run with the vent fully opened at all times to ensure a constant flow of fresh air to my eggs. I'd recommend that you do the same. If there's a need to increase humidity a small amount for a short period, go ahead and adjust the vent. If you'll need more humidity for a long period, increase surface area.

3. Increase surface area.

During certain times of the year humidity indoors is going to be extremely low. Winter in Pennsylvania is brutal. The relative humidity inside generally runs at 15% or less. That's difficult or impossible to overcome with most small incubators, but with a Brinsea, it's easily doable. You can increase the surface area by using small sponges, or by using an evaporating pad. Evaporating media is what is used with Brinsea's Humidity Management modules. It's essentially a thick porous paper that can be cut and shaped to any size. It wicks water very well and can be cut and bent to hang into the wells (Image 17), thus increasing surface area. I've considered paper towels, but they just don't wick enough water to stay wet when humidity is extremely low.

Egg Capacity (Approx)

-	Octagon 20	Octagon 40

Quail	60	120
Pheasant	40	80
Hen	24	48
Duck	20	40
Goose	9/12	18/24

Physical Data

Dimensions	Octagon 20	Octagon 40

Incubator only	12.8"x9.3"x9.6"h	24.4"x9.3"x9.6"h
With cradle	16"x9.3"x11h	28"x9.3"x11"h
Weight	4.4lb Cradle 2.2lb	7.7lb Cradle 3.3lb
Power Consumption Typical Average	45W (max) 25W	75W (max) 38W
Electrical supply	115v, 60Hz (230v 50Hz) available as ordered	115v, 60Hz (230v 50Hz) available as ordered

1. Viewability (Image 18)

As with most incubators, viewing the hatching chicks is somewhat difficult. Viewing is aided by shining a flashlight into an incubator end, and although the viewing area is greater than most incubators in it's class, it still leaves something to be desired.

2. Cleaning

The thermal plastic construction of the incubator's base allows for staining and harboring of nasties and needs to be cleaned very carefully. A disinfectant is definately in order after each hatch. The fans in the incubators lid will gather fluff if the incubator is used for hatching. They are cleanable with compressed air. After much experience with these incubators, My best suggestion would be to designate a seperate unit for hatching.

3. Smoothness of cradle operation

I've discussed this at length above. It's an annoying little quirk, but easily ammended. If it's not addressed, it will cause the short link to break.

4. Short Link breakage

Another minor but frustrating quirk. Keep a short link on hand.

1. Rock Solid Temperature

Set it and forget it, period. I have not experienced any better temperature control in any incubator at any cost. This is simply one spot where the Octagon series can't be beat.

2. Stylish and Stealthy

It just plain looks good. Good enough to sit anywhere without complaints from the better half. The Octagon series is nearly silent. Quiet enough to sit in a bedroom by the lightest sleeper.

3. Performance

No guess work, no messing around, it just hatches eggs.

4. Service

Brinsea's support and after sale service is beyond reproach. They are the one company that is a pleasure for us to work with day in and day out. A knowlegable and courteous staff is an exception to the rule these days, but Brinsea's definately has a handle on their business.