Review: Farm Innovators 4250 Pro Series Circulated Air Incubator with Automatic Egg Turner
After a lot of online research, I landed on the Farm Innovators 4250 Pro Series Circulated Air Incubator with Automatic Egg Turner being our first incubator. We needed a large quantity incubator and wanted something low maintenance. Most reviews had this frequently listed in the top 5 best incubators for small-scale home or hobby farmers. For the most part we agree, but there are a few things the reviews didn’t mention that I wanted to share here. This is a review of the circulated air incubator model, which we prefer, but you can save some money (roughly $20-30) by getting the still air model, and even more money if you forego the automatic egg turner and opt to manually turn your eggs multiple times a day. It’s also worth noting that we do dry hatching for the first 18 days and recommend doing the same if your normal, ambient temperature can be maintained between 20-40%.
To start, I want to reiterate that this is a good incubator. It’s not my favorite incubator, but I don’t regret this purchase and would recommend it depending on someone’s specific needs and experience hatching eggs. It’s dead simple to get up and running. It factory defaults to 100 degree temperature, 21-day countdown, and (perhaps most importantly) the temperature and humidity was accurate right out of the box on the unit we purchased which is a huge relief, especially for first time and inexperienced hatchers. On top of that, given how the unit is constructed, it’s very easy to maintain the temperature and humidity even when you need to open it up for your day 4 and day 10 candling, then again on day 18 when you remove the automatic egg turner. You can even add additional water to increase the humidity without opening the lid — though it could have been implemented better. There is a red indicator light that turns on letting you easily see when the unit is heating up. It is also covered in a plastic outer shell that you can write and take notes on using a dry erase marker. Lastly, to round out the positives, it ships with an external LED candler. This is perfect for egg hatching newbies and better than other candling implementations on other units.
Now for the negatives. Most of these are things I never came across in other reviews that can help others as they figure out what works best for them. Some of these aren’t functional negatives, just things that have been implemented better on different incubators. First off, unlike other incubators that have automatic egg turners, this unit takes up two power outlets — one for the egg turner and one for the temperature unit. While this unit does allow you to fill it with water to raise the humidity, the positioning of the fill holes is awkward. They are located too low on the unit and are a straight shot into the unit. This means you need to use something like a turkey baster to fill it, basically blasting water into it, not carefully filling it up, and it’s difficult to determine how full the water reservoir is without any external indicator. The unit also has small holes on the bottom (I didn’t know this before filling it with water), and once I was done hatching and went to clean the unit, the water inside swished around and came out of those holes. This incubator can hold up to 41 eggs, which is great! However, I don’t recommend actually filling it with 41 eggs. Once the chicks begin to hatch, it gets really crowded, really fast. Lastly, one of the most exciting parts of hatching chicks is watching the process. This unit has a small viewing window, making it difficult to see everything inside from one angle, and we found that the window fogged and built up condensation at higher humidity. This is concerning because you don’t want water dropping onto the eggs.
To wrap up, this is a great unit for new or amateur hatchers, with a few minor design flaws, at a good price, with all the basic features you need to have a successful hatch. While not my favorite small scale, hobby incubator, I would still recommend it.
Pros
Out of the box temperature and humidity was accurate
Can hold a LOT of eggs — 41 to be exact
Automatic Egg Turner
Thick styrofoam maintains temperature
Easy to clean
Circulates air (personal preference)
Ships with candler
Can add water without opening lid
Build-in hygrometer
Red indicator light when heat is operating
Plastic outer shell can be written on with dry erase marker
Good price to egg quantity ($130-150)
Less expensive models with fewer features are also available
Cons
Uses two power outlets (1 for egg turner, 1 for temperature)
Awkward to add water
Overcrowding with a high hatch rate
Small viewing window
Window fogs up with higher humidity
Small vent holes on the bottom can lead to messes
Note: This is not a sponsored review. This unit was purchased with our own money.