 Hey everybody, this video is going to be about how to make an egg incubator. All you really going to need is just some stuff you get from Walmart in the dollar store and it's basically a cooler. And I've seen a few videos on YouTube on how to make some very similar to this. I didn't get any hardware cloth for the bottom. The closest place I could get it would be about an hour away. So I figured I could buy something cheaper and closer and it would work just as good. But yeah, basically some of the other videos and stuff, there's a little bit more complexity. This way of doing it is so easy that somebody in elementary school could make it. And I've got a list of the stuff right here. And it only costs 20 bucks, 20 dollars even to make one of these. And what you need is these are the stuff I got from the dollar store. Tape, duct tape, this one dollar. Blue, Elmer's glue, this is a dollar. Light bulbs, the 40 watt light bulbs for a dollar. And this metal tin right here was a dollar. So it was this rubber mat. These are like what you put in your cabinets so your dishes don't slip or anything like that, that was a dollar. And so it was five dollars for that stuff, spend at the dollar store. And the cooler was all the stuff was bought at Walmart. Two dollars and 47 cents for the cooler. The light bulb socket, which is basically light bulb goes in one end, extension cord goes in the other. That was a dollar 27. Six foot extension cord at Walmart was a dollar 35. Dual digital thermometer, high grounder measures humidity. That was eight dollars and 94 cents. And last, the last picture frame was 97 cents at Walmart. And the funny thing is it came to exactly 20 dollars even for all of this stuff. And so two stops, stop at the dollar store or stop at Walmart. 20 dollars plus tax, whatever you've got an incubator. And some similar to this, if you're buying a brand new, it's about 50 bucks. So 20 dollars versus 50 bucks, good deal, I think so. So let's get started. Now I tried this aluminum tray a few different ways. And this is basically going to act as the thing that eggs sit on. And you want to take about an inch and a half out of the middle. And you're going to cut. Right about here. And these side, you're going to fold it over. Right. You're going to fold that over. Same to the other side. Actually made this one a little bit too small, so I'm going to recut it. And ties that together. So it really is like starting to earn some points right now. Alright, now we're going to fold this thing so they overlap. So one side needs to be creased down and the other one the opposite way. Be careful you'll cut your finger. And if you're wondering how big this tray is, it is 11 and 3-quarters inches by 9 and 3-8 inches by 1 and a half inches. So that's the type of tray that you want to get from there. And then once you've got it folded in like this, you're going to fold it again like this. You're basically all you're doing is making the middle of it shorter. So we'll fit inside the cooler better. Alright, then we're going to tape it. See how I did that? Took the middle out and folded it. So that way it's like half the size maybe. Something like that. Alright, so we're going to tape this up and put it inside. Actually now we're going to tape it up and then do some else. Alright, now that you've taken your tray and taped it all the way around the backside and down the middle, deduct tape, you're going to want to cut the inside, cut the inside edge right here and stop where it's folded over at and do the same thing on the backside. And basically all this is going to be is just a support. So this thing doesn't cave in. Now once you get this thing cut on both sides, we're going to fold it inwards. So that way that rubber mat has got something to rest on. And you could work gloves. Might be better to probably work gloves, safer I guess. Alright, now that you've got it cut like that, down the edges for the middle still there and fold it up. Look at that. Fold it up right at the edge. Like that. So you've got the middle edge, little flaps right here. And what this is going to do is it's going to allow ventilation and there's going to be water underneath it. So it will stay really moist and also if it's going to support, it's going to support that rubber mat, which is actually going to be kind of like a net stretch tight. And the next thing is to do is exactly that. You've got this. Now remember this, you don't even have to do this. If you have that hard work cloth, you can totally leave this completely out of the picture. But if you have to buy everything, this is kind of what you got to do. So I'm going to lay this mat over this and then take the edges to it and stretch it really tight. So see if I'm going to do that and get back to you. Alright, so after about 10 minutes, I cut the mat to fit this and then I just taped around the edges on the bottom. So you can kind of see how basically what it's going to look like. It's a little tray that's going to fit down in there. Now if you can't get the tape to stick all the way or it won't stay on there for very long, just tape it as good as you can. Because this thing is going to be fit down in there nice and tight and snug. And it's actually going to hold it all in place. So get it nice and tight to start out. And once you get it in place, if the tape loosens up, the edges of it are going to hold it all in place. So that's out of the way. This is the second one that I've made. The other one is already down in there. You can see that. It's a little rubber mat for the little eggs to sit on and then they're myelander. So alright, now once you've got the little tray set up, and remember if you can get some hardware cloth, the metal mesh, you don't even have to worry about doing this. Save you a ton of time. Alright, so the next thing we're going to do is we're going to put a hole right here in the side and put the light bulb in there. And we're going to take the light bulb and it's fat on one end, the part that's going to go inside. So we're going to measure that part and then just cut a little bit smaller than that. So that way it'll fit in nice and tight and snug. And take a little bit and fill in the cracks if there's any gaps around it. Just see a little bit, it's best that you can anyways. Alright, now all that's dry and the next thing we're going to do is cut off the little window. Now you've got the plug in for the light. The light's going to go right in there. So you're going to want to put the window over here where you're not being blinded by the light. And where the eggs are going to sit. It's going to be kind of hot over here and then it'll be a little bit more stable over here on this end of it. You can kind of see that right over here. So we'll put the little window right over here on one of these sides. So take your little picture frame, take the glass out, and we're going to measure it on here around the edges. And just like we do with that, we're going to cut a little bit inward. So that way it doesn't fall in, you know, because it's something to hold on to. Alright, so I got it all taped in. I cut it out where just to give it something to hold on to, and I actually glued it to, I put some glue in there to kind of get a good seal in it. So I took the thermometer. The only thing that wasn't included in my $20 list was a AA battery. So in this one battery is not included, but I had one end of remote. So I just took that out. As you can see it shows you the humidity and also the temperature and Fahrenheit. And what's cool about this one is it was only like nine bucks. And it tells you the highs and lows like for the day. So in the middle of the night if it gets down to cold or if it gets too hot, it will tell you what the extremes have been, you know, what it's fluctuated. Just because you're looking at it didn't mean that, you know, five hours ago, it was totally different temperature. So I put a battery now and you can see a nice little window. And I put the light bulb in and plugged it into the wall. So let's see if it works. Let's see how it looks actually. Actually already saw if it worked for not so. There you go. A $20 egg incubator. And it's got the little window on there. And the way that you control the temperature on it is you actually just punch holes in the sides. Now the only other videos I've seen, they actually punched holes up here. But what I'm going to do to create air circulation is I'm actually going to punch holes underneath the light. So that way the heat from the light is actually pulling cold air up. And then the heat's going to travel over here. I'm going to punch holes in the top over here. So that way it's kind of got to be like a little convection of them. And maybe give some air circulation at least a little bit. But I'm hoping that it will pull some of that warm air from this light bulb over the top of the eggs. By having the light the holes down low and the heat coming out of pie over here. So it'll pull the heat over here. So yeah, so that's it. There's a little tray right here. Let me grab some eggs and see how the eggs hold up inside there. Alright, so it puts some eggs in there. And these are just some store bought ones right here that we've got. And we'll put the real ones in here once I get this temperature figured out. So right now it's telling me that the temperature is at 77. And it's 50% humidity. Now for the chickens, the ideal temperature is between 97 degrees Fahrenheit and 101 degrees Fahrenheit. It's ideally about 99.5. And the humidity's got to be around 50%. And then once wrapped for they hatched like like a couple days before they hatch, you got to increase it to about 65. And the way I'm going to keep the humidity up is just put some water down here. And it's just going to sit on the bottom so there's going to be a constant flow of humidity going through there. So yeah, so that's it. That's a $20 egg incubator from a cooler. So yeah. Well, thanks for watching guys. Hopefully you guys try this at home. This is a really cool project for kids even too. Now you can't do this with store bought eggs. You need fertile eggs. And if you go to any farmer or people that have you know backyard chickens, you know, and you tell them you want fertile eggs, they'll understand what you're talking about. So let me put the lid on here real quick and kind of see what it looks like. See if I can find it. There it is. All right. So yeah, so there you go. There's a $20 egg incubator. And something like this would normally cost $50 brand new. And it's really easy to regulate the temperature in here. You just punch the holes. You don't punch too many because you just kind of punch them as you need it. Leave the lid on here for a little bit just like this. Let the temperature go up and then try to control the temperature just like that. So yeah. Pretty cool. Pretty easy too. It didn't take me very long. You know, just to do it all probably maybe 30 minutes. And that includes making that darn tray right down there. So half a dozen eggs incubated and a $20 incubator. All right. Well, here's a quick update on keeping the temperature at a regular, regular temp. And I had to cut a couple things into the, I thought I just need to put a couple holes, but I actually cut a big old thing back here. And I also did one up here. And the reason I did that, like I said before, was to let the, the warm air up here. And then the cold air down back over this way. So it'll kind of create like a, like a convection kind of. And not only did I do that, but to keep the temperature down, I had to keep kind of cutting. And I cut a couple spots up here. These are also removable. And I've got one on top of it right now. And it just takes to get a little, used to a little bit of adjusting. And you can kind of see that right now. It's at 97 degrees, 30% humidity. And I'm going to have to probably put a sponge in there. But the way that I got the temperature down from like 113, it was up to 113. I actually put a little wall in here. And let me show you that real quick. I put a little wall in here. And what I did was I took the black backing to that picture frame and just wrapped it in aluminum foil. And then once I wrapped it in aluminum foil, I made the end stick out a little bit more. And I just taped the edges in there. So that way, you don't get as much radiant heat coming off of the light bulb. And also it'll kind of protect the little, little chickens in there too when they hatch. They won't get too close to light to kind of get burned. So, so yeah, so that was kind of, that's kind of a little bit of an update. And just take a little bit of adjusting, a little bit of getting used to. And I guess every light bulb might be a little bit different. So yeah, just kind of cut it and cut it into square so you can save the pieces and stuff like that also too. So that way you don't cut off too much. So, so yeah, so that's about it. I'm gonna watch this temperature and try to get it to right around 99 degrees. And then we'll be putting some fertile chicken eggs in there. So thanks for watching guys and stay tuned for some updates on the little baby chickens.