Brinsea Mini II Advance Incubator with Automatic Turner for Hatching 7 Eggs

I knew before I purchased this incubator that I love it. I have been borrowing one from a friend for a couple of years. She uses hers too much now to loan it out. So I knew the Brinsea would last. I looked at some cheaper units, but there was no indication in the reviews that they had been used repeatedly. I'd rather pay more upfront for a good unit than have to replace after a few uses. I will be hatching Serama chicks. I have a prize hen whose offspring should be salable and show well, so I wanted a really reliable unit. This incubator is so easy to use. It's set and then pretty much forget except for adding a little water every third day or so. (They have added a place where you can add water now without opening the incubator. A great improvement.) The temperature and humidity are regulated and the eggs are automatically turned. You can set the temperature and turning to your specifications. You can see on the top how many days are left until your hatch is expected. 2 days before the due date I remove the egg turning plate. The incubator knows to quit turning. I cut a soft paper towel to fit the bottom so the chick's feet won't slip and add more water to raise the humidity. The Brinsea comes with a corrugated pad for chicks to stand on but the corrugations are too deep for Serama chicks. They're much smaller than regular large fowl chicks. You can see the chicks pipping and hatching quite well. If one has trouble you can see and gently help. I'm not expecting a great hatch rate since I'm collecting eggs from one hen, some eggs will be nearly 2 weeks old. I'll add to this later if need be. One more thing. For Serama eggs I bought the additional small egg turning plate. It has 12 holes for eggs instead of the 7 for large fowl eggs. This is a small incubator but I"m a small operation. 12 chicks would be plenty for me and probably I'll end up with closer to 6. That's fine too. The only thing that I don't enjoy about hatching my own eggs is cockerels. If you buy sexed eggs from a hatchery you're all set with little baby pullets. If you hatch your own unsexed eggs, on average 60% will be cockerels. That's a pretty reliable statistic. I struggle with having enough hens to pair with cocks.

I used this to incubate some of our guinea eggs. Guinea keets are smaller than chicks and I unfortunately had a learning curve. First, do NOT throw away the corrugated cardboard circle that fits into the bottom on the incubator and looks like packaging material. Before you go into lockdown mode, the egg turner disk must be removed and this cardboard disk goes into that spot. If you are hatching smaller birds, place countertop liner on top of this and staple it down!! This is essential! I just used the cardboard disk which was my downfall. Our first keet hatched and a few hours afterwards he was walking around, but his legs kept sliding in the grooves of the cardboard (picture a chick doing the splits). After watching this for a few hours (and yes he was fully dry), I quickly opened the incubator and removed him as I was afraid he was going to develop spraddle leg. He flourished in the brooder, but I am pretty sure that I doomed my other eggs by letting the humidity out as they were egg bound and it was awful to watch. If you are hatching chicken eggs, the cardboard disk might be enough. However, I would still recommend the extra precaution of cabinet liner just so they don’t slip. Another tip - set the temperature on the incubator and just let it be. I tried sticking all kinds of thermometers in there and every single one read a slightly different temperature. I drove myself nuts doing this until I realized that the temperature under a mother hen is never 100% consistent and uniform over all the eggs. (See update - used warm mist humidifier next to incubator in second hatch!) If you are hatching larger chicks, I would definitely not put seven eggs in as there is not a lot of room in there. However, all in all I’m pleased with this little incubator and hopefully next time will have better luck with my guinea eggs. Update 6/17/19 We used it again for five more guinea eggs. This time I used the cabinet liner material which I stapled down to the cardboard insert. I also put a warm mist humidifier next to the humidifier (humidity outside the humidifier was around 55% with this in place). I will do this again next time. I actually placed the eggs in a few days before they hatched (my guinea abandoned the nest) and I was candling them up to 12 hours before they hatched as I had no idea how close they were. All eggs hatched successfully and the liner worked perfectly. No one was slipping and all the chicks hatched pretty quickly. I will do everything exactly the same next time. Success!

I purchased this incubator for hatching Serama chicks (which are notoriously difficult to hatch). I also bought the optional egg insert for bantam eggs (purchased separately) for this purpose. The incubator worked wonderfully. Successful hatch and it held humidity (I live in mid-FL) and temp perfectly. Turner works as advertised (though I did not use it for this hatch as I had shipped eggs with displaced air cells). This incubator has an lcd display and settings that allow you to personalize the temp, days to hatch, turn time, etc... so no matter what bird you are hatching, this should work to make your life easier. I had an issue with the incubator, as the alcohol solution I used to clean it after hatch caused the plastic dome with new antimicrobial plastic to cloud and degrade. I called the company and a human being answered on the second ring. They listened to my issue carefully, had me email in pictures, and are investigating the issue. They sent me another incubator to replace the one with issues as well as a return label for the other incubator. Bottom line... It is not often you find a product that is this well-designed with a company willing to stand behind their workmanship with such integrity. I will be using their products from here on out for ease of use and reliability. Thanks Brinsea!!!

This is my second Brinsea incubator, and I've been hatching in it for over a year now. I also still have my older Mini Advance which is many years old. I love it!! I set mine to 99.5 degrees, turn setting 8 every 180 minutes, and I add water to the pot as directed. I didn't notice any improvement from the auto-cooling so I don't use that feature. I often get 100% hatches of my own chickens' eggs. The auto turn beep is rather loud, especially since I have to keep mine in my bedroom, but it's not a big deal. The external water port is pretty neat. I only use it during lockdown though as I don't worry too much about opening the lid during the first 18 days of incubation - the temperature stays very steady and remember that even the broodiest hen gets off the nest occasionally. A lot of people will buy a hygrometer to monitor humidity but I don't bother. Anyway, I love this incubator a lot and I will stick with Brinsea even when I move to larger incubators.

This was my first ever attempt at hatching fertile eggs. I purchased the eggs from an online store, shipped cross country. The incubator was very easy to set up for a first timer, instructions were very clear. I had 12 Pharaoh Coturnix Quail eggs. From those 12, 8 of them developed, and 7 of them hatched. I was very pleased with this turn out! The 8th one that did not hatch had formed with it's head facing the wrong way so it could not get out of the egg. I purchased the 12 small egg turning disk from Amazon, as well as some non-slip grip to make a hatching mat rather than using the cardboard one included. The unit does not have a sensor for humidity, which I was originally concerned about, but I just followed the instructions to maintain water at a certain rate, and it seems to have worked out just fine! All in all, great little incubator for a reasonable price. Love the ability to see everything while it's happening.

Love Brinsea incubators!!! Bought the MAXI II Advance last year when we were hatching our heritage turkeys. This year we added the MINI II Advance version in hopes we could keep eggs turning in one while eggs were in lockdown in the other. MINI works great for chicken eggs but we needed to move two turkey eggs into the MINI so the 12 chicken eggs could be in lockdown in our MAXI. Turkey eggs wouldn't roll at all!! I had to manually turn throughout the day. Temp and humidity are managed well but I couldn't figure out any position for the turkey eggs to sit so they would roll. Had a similar problem with larger chicken eggs. Thinking the motor isn't strong enough to turn heavier eggs? I'm disappointed because of the money spent and the limitations of the MINI for our needs. Wish we'd just purchased another MAXI in hind sight. Still within returning time table with Amazon but doubt that's an option as I've used the incubator. Meanwhile, the two turkey eggs are inside our MAXI turning just fine 👍🏻 Like I said, LOVE Brinsea incubators ... just disappointed the MINI isn't fulfilling our needs.

I wish I would have gotten one of these sooner. I bought the small egg disk also as hatch bantam eggs and this has been awesome! 1st eggs lay on their sides and get rolled gently, like what a hen would do. 2nd keeps temp and humitidy, just make sure on a level surface and to keep reservoir full. I haven't hatched anything in it though because I love the eggs over to my old Hovabator incubator I use for hatching. Con; Tight space for hatching chicks and cardboard hatching disk is a joke. A lot of fellow hatchaholics who do hatch using the Brinsea Mini II, use no stick shelving mats and cut to fit. I use the mat in my Hatcher, helps chicks get feet under them and reduce splayed legs and slipped tendons.

We got this to do our first ever duck egg incubation because our ducks wouldn’t sit on eggs long enough. It says it holds 7 duck eggs, which it did, more on that later. We had 4 jumbo pekin eggs and 3 smaller khaki Campbell eggs And they all fit without thouching each other. During the incubation process we had 1 egg that wasn’t fertile and 1 that stopped developing about half way. I in no way think that had anything to do with the incubator, just nature. The remaining 5 eggs hatched right on schedule. With those 5 ducks in there it was so tight! I don’t see how 7 ducks would have fit and think I would of had to take them all out much sooner than the 24 hours just because of room. But other than that this thing is great! It has automatic turning, countdown for hatch day, and so much more. It also came with a great little instruction book, that I felt was great, especially since this was our first time doing this. Our ducks are now 5 weeks old and doing amazing! Can’t wait to hatch some more babies!

It’s not fair that you pay that much and it turns doesn’t work I received the item with the plug cut And I tried to reconnect the cable still didn’t work

Excellent little machine, we’ve done many hatched with it, fully automatic. Never had any issues. I only wish I had bought a bigger one.

I bought this many years ago. Still works just as good as when I got it. I always get awesome hatch rates with this incubator

The price was a steal. Love this product 100% very very easy to use. Highly recommend I have purchased a couple of them.

Good brand and works well. Have a good hatch rate with little interference. You can leave the incubator (pretty much) alone (minus adjusting the humidity with water) and still expect some babies.