Ovation 56 EX Connect

I’m new to egg hatching and have now seamlessly hatched three separate batches of eggs thanks to this awesome incubator! It’s extremely easy to use (Brinsea’s YouTube setup video really helps), self manages and provides consistent results. I know it more expensive than alternative brands, but well worth it for the quality and consistently. It provides a very steady temperature, manages rotating the eggs on its own and adds whatever water is needed to keep the humidity consistent (simple attach an ice cream bucket of water to the provided tubing). I literally went on vacation for two weeks and came back to well developed eggs ready to hatch! Awesome and well worth the money for someone who wants a low maintenance experience with all the fun of hatching eggs!

I LOVE this incubator! I will never buy another brand at this point. I was having such issues with humidity and temp in my NR360s, and when I use this, perfect every single time! The auto humidity feature is amazing, its really a set and forget situation. I do wish the incubator came with more replacement sponges, but you only get the one. Mine came without the power cable as well, I called brinsea and they sent one out immediately via fedex! I was so impressed with their customer service! My ONLY complaint about this is that it can be hard to clean the top, you have to unscrew it all and clean each section, but I'm sure they will improve that with time. All in all, extremely happy with my purchase.

Best incubator I've used in decades of poultry raising. The Brinsea is rock solid on temperature control. It's excellent on humidity for most of incubation period and decent to good on late stage humidity. The latter is one of those get-to-know the device issues. And the humidity for 7/8th of the process is flawless. I am in my fifth year of using my Brinsea 56 Ex. So my review is unusual in that it's a rather long-term evaluation. Two maintenance issues are a pain, but only one of them is serious. The more minor issue is the need to replace, every year, the short internal humidity tube that winds around the capstan pump. I get anxious every time, but it's not that big a deal. Especially if you refresh your memory with one of Brinsea's excellent YouTube videos. I guess I am getting old and don't want to fiddle! And for the price, I wish I didn't have to. Which brings me to the cleaning issue and the related serious durability problem. To continue to see through the top, you must clean off the chick down that collects on the inside of the top. Wiping off the down is easy. But doing this requires you to remove six small screws that hold the inner liner below the top. Four of the screws are tiny and do not unscrew easily, even with a small screwdriver I've dedicated to this task. Furthermore, the screws insert into plastic housings that join the top and the inner liner together. In the fifth year/fifth time I cleaned, two of those housings cracked, one seriously. Probably Brinsea would say it's an over-tightening issue. And it probably is. But it's uber challenging to always stop the screws perfectly. And it frustrates me that there aren't small wingnut style bolts or some such instead of these tiny screws. Most of all, there should be a steel sleeve in the plastic for the screws. This year, my inner liner appears to be sagging in one corner because the screw won't hold in the cracked housing. The key role of the inner liner seems to be to keep chicks away from the fan. But since I hatch in separate baskets or mesh bags, for pedigree purposes, I hope I can remove the inner liner without much consequence. Otherwise, this mostly great, expensive incubator is shot after five uses.

We bought this almost 6 months ago. It has literally run nonstop until today. We have hatched geese, chickens, guineas, and peachicks with terrific hatch rates on all. Highly recommend this product from our experience. Super easy to use and not loud at all. We removed the pipped and hatching before full hatch because the trays are not extremely chick friendly but worth every penny.

This is an excellent incubator and the terperature and humidity is easy to manage…I highly recommend this Brinsea Ovation 56 EX

When we were new to the wonderful world of breeding and showing poultry a couple years ago, we went down the learning curve road, and bought the styrofoam incubator and the 360. After struggling with lots of dead chicks at lockdown, poor hatching rates, and the inability to maintain constant humidity levels, we bought one of these 56s used. It was a game changer. We tried to use the 360 as a hatcher only, but that resulted in lots of lost chicks still lost at lockdown. These are not inexpensive, but compared to my losses in shipped eggs and losing chicks from my champion birds, the cost balances out imo. We purchased a second 56 last year, and used our original one as a hatcher. We've outgrown it, and I've just ordered my third. They are so easy and reliable, and my first two hatches this year were 100%. My third hatch was 90%, and these were all test hatches from different breeding pens. We're in the thick of hatching season now, and I'm looking forward to having another to have enough room to get my eggs going and to have larger hatches all at once.

First time use worked good for two days then temperature spiked to 126 F* humidity at 100% Fried my bobwhite eggs called Brinsea after reset It worked okay for three hatchings ( 50% hatch rate though ) then last try temperature spiked again fried eggs again over $100 of quail eggs lost

Great unit. Knew it would be. Just needs more soak8ng material.