Is the hovabator the best incubator for a small scale hobbyist ?
- Thread starter Spencerg
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It's a good starter incubator. Things to be aware of:
--you don't need the turbo fan. As a matter of fact, it may dry the eggs out
--the thermostat that comes with the hobovator is very poor. You will ideally need to buy a proportional thermostat which will cost around $100 (the Zoo-med incubator is like the hobovator but more expensive because it already has the proportional thermostat)
--if the room you have the incubator in gets warmer than the temperature at which you want to be incubating, the temperatures will not stay low because the hobovator doesn't cool, it just heats.
Despite that, I got about 5 good years of use out of it and hatched hundreds of leopard geckos.
ALiza
--you don't need the turbo fan. As a matter of fact, it may dry the eggs out
--the thermostat that comes with the hobovator is very poor. You will ideally need to buy a proportional thermostat which will cost around $100 (the Zoo-med incubator is like the hobovator but more expensive because it already has the proportional thermostat)
--if the room you have the incubator in gets warmer than the temperature at which you want to be incubating, the temperatures will not stay low because the hobovator doesn't cool, it just heats.
Despite that, I got about 5 good years of use out of it and hatched hundreds of leopard geckos.
ALiza
DrCarrotTail
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I've had decent success with the built in thermostat but it is definitely no where near as good as the ones Aliza described. I would agree that the turbo fan is overkill and may even be detrimental so I would just get the basic model and spend the extra money on a good thermostat. The thing that makes the most difference with small incubators is the temp of the room you keep them in. Small incubators just can't stabilize temps as well as bigger ones so if the temp in the room drops 10 degrees from day to night they may not be able to compensate quickly and it may harm your eggs. If the temp in the room stays stable they're great machines 
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