GQF Genesis Hova-Bator

Don't let the styrofoam fool you, this incubator works! i had a little giant (very cheap and did NOT work well for me) i like the fact that this keeps track of the humidity and temperature, it comes set to the correct temp and i never had to mess with it. I do have to add water about every day, the instructions say every 3 days or so, but its much more often than that..but i open it each day a couple times to turn the eggs anyhow. Today my Sebastopol Geese have pipped and will hatch this weekend right on schedule!! I would recomend this if you are a novice..super easy and you can see, it would be great for a classroom as well. LOVE this incubator! it's not as expensive as a Brinsea (which i also have and love) and works as well. worth the money.

I’ve had this unit setup for a little over 24hrs and it has held the temperature by .2 degrees. This has been verified by 3 calibrated thermometer/hydrometers but digital and analog. This unit is super easy to set up and get running. I first had a farm innovator and I got different readings from all over the incubator but this one has equal temp anywhere you put the thermometer. First hatch to go in within a couple days. For a styrofoam unit the quality is very good and it has a huge window for viewing. Looks great !!! As of now I would buy again a 100 times over.

I have 2 of these Genesis 1588 incubators and IMO they are the best incubator you can buy before stepping into the $500+ range. The digital readout and electronic thermostat control are a must have. I always double check the incubator readouts against a thermometer/hygrometer and the Genesis is always a steady 100*f. Its also very easy to regulate the humidity inside, just add small amounts of water at a time. If you are busy like me and don't have time to babysit a 'bator all day, this is a great way to hatch eggs without all the fuss. I also bought the GQF auto turners so I can pretty much set and forget :) I would definitely recommend the Genesis 1588 to beginners and experienced hatchers alike, its a great machine to learn the ropes in and its not complicated at all. Some of you may wonder, is a hunk of styrofoam really worth that cost when I can get one for fifty bucks at the farm store? The answer is YES , you get what you pay for and this incubator is SO much easier to work with than one of those cheapo bators. Reasons: 1-Heating The cheapo has a turn knob thermostat, meaning you have to run it for hours then adjust hotter/cooler, then wait hours again to see if you need to adjust it again. If you run it in an air conditioned room, the temp inside the bator will rise and fall with the room temp meaning you can breach the two degrees too high mark and kill all the embryos in the bator. The 1588 has an electronic control that can be set to different temperatures, 100*f for chicken eggs, and your temp won't get above the set temp because the heat will auto turn off, so no dead embryos. 2-Humidity The cheapo is SO hard to add water to if you are incubating with a turner, the turner sits right over top of the water reservoir so you actually are pouring water right over the eggs. The 1588 has the turner stationed to the side of the reservoir, so you wont splash the eggs when adding water. There are also multiple water channels so bumping up the humidity at hatch time is very easy. So if you are looking for a great incubator on a budget, I definitely recommend the GQF Genesis 1588. You won't be sorry you spent the extra $ to get the good stuff.

This little incubator works great! We've hatched everything from Silkies to Polish to Banty to Quail in this little incubator, and it hasn't had a hiccup yet. Like others have posted, give it a day or so to warm up and stabilize before putting eggs in it. Also, ours is located in our laundry room, which stays between 78 and 83 degrees F, I have no idea how well it would do in environments with wider temperature variations, though I suspect it wouldn't do well if temperatures vary greatly between hot and cold, or if the environment is either extremely hot or cold. That said, the LCD display and easy control panel are awesome and seem to be really accurate as well. But, I like having it in the house, because I walk past it constantly going to and from the garage, so I usually catch and get to watch the little chicks as they hatch. Yes, much more exciting that watching paint dry, really. Edit: I wanted to edit my original post because basically one hatch afterwards, I got the dreaded 104.5 degree thermometer reading, fortunately the incubator was empty at the time as I was bringing it up for a new hatch, and decided to do a little investigating... well, no matter what you do at this point, unplug, etc there's no bringing it back, PLUS it's NOT the heater that's heating up the inside of the incubator, at least on mine, it was the frickin' thermostat/controller unit was hot to the touch, no joke! The heating element/fan was cool! Meanwhile, the internal temp of the incubator was hot enough that it pegged the reptile thermometer I put in it at 120F... not ideal for eggs. This is with NO power outages, or anything like that. I live in the desert, one of the most boring places in the country for power outages. We don't get them, or spikes, or anything else. This unit simply up and failed randomly during its initial warm-up, and apparently failed in a catastrophic manor for the controller itself to be warming up the inside of the incubator... Now, I called GQF, they're a company in Georgia and talked to one of their tech folks who was very nice and had no problem replacing mine under warranty since I'd only had it a few months, and it was at my door less than a week later in AZ. So far the new part, which is indeed a different design than the original with visually different components such as push buttons and such, is working flawlessly. I am about halfway through the first hatch cycle with it, and I'm watching it like a hawk. I have two other incubators running at the same time that I will disperse eggs to at the first sign of trouble, and the fact that I've already made this plan is troubling... Honestly, you shouldn't have to be worried about your incubator outside of normal mother hen jitters. I think the bottom line is, whether GQF will admit it or not, there's a problem with their product. Not all their products, I've got an ancient HovaBator that is a tank and will run forever, lol, and so do thousands of others, but I think that at least the 'production' Genesis controller/thermostat units have a defect in them that rears its ugly head sooner or later, ticking time bomb style. Obviously GQF has changed the part some since mine was produced as the new controller is at the very least visually different from the old one, and maybe they've fixed some of the internal problems too? I think this is product is a great concept, the controls are stupid simple, the huge window is awesome, it really is a great package... if GQF can fix their quality control issues with the electronics, it'll totally be worth the cost of entry. Edit 3/27/15: Gotta love updated reviews right? So, the new updated controller part has worked flawlessly for the last almost 6 months of continuous use (knock on wood), original fan/heating element continues to perform as designed, and as a whole the product is doing what it was designed to do now that it has the updated controller. As such, I'm bumping my rating back up to 4 stars under the assumption that most if not all of these incubators being sold today have the updated design controller and are past the learning/debug curve of the original controller. I really wish GQF would have done something more honorable about their product knowing there was a fault in the design, like send a message out to their distributors saying hey, if this thing breaks contact us and we'll swap out the controller free of charge with the new design. The folks that I talked to when I had mine replaced under warranty were great to talk to, friendly, seemed to really care... Just seems that a LOT of the negative press this little incubator has gotten would have been a lot less negative had GQF come out right away and told folks there was a problem and they were going to fix it. I know, that solution doesn't make the most financially practical sense in the short term, but in the long run maybe it would have kept or brought in a lot of future customers? In any case, I think it's safe to say if you buy one of these, it probably has the new style controller, and will probably hatch you out hundreds and hundreds of happy little chicks over its lifetime, and if I were looking to buy another incubator right now I'd probably pull the trigger on one of these again.

Worked great no problems. Had great hatch rate!👍

I can build an incubator for $20, especially after seeing how simple this is. Why pay $150? There are a few benefits. #1 Quality of the heating element and digital display is good. Set it and forget it. Building your own will require constant temperature adjustments which may lead to bad hatch rate. #2 Water tray. Humidity is all about surface area and the tray makes maintaining humidity very easy. Ultimately I think this incubator is still a little over priced, but what you get is a very solid performer. Mine has been running without stop for 4 months now. UPDATE: After running without stop for 5 months the control module failed. I lost 37 chicks just two days before hatch. It was a painful loss. I contact GQF about my problem, and they responded very quickly via email and mailed out a replacement the same day on warranty. Two days later (Wednesday) I had the new part installed and a fresh batch of chickens in the incubator. Fast quality service makes GQF a reliable company that im glad to do business with.

A lot better than my previous hovabator. Temps are constant. Watch your troughs, that fan utilizes any available humidity faster. My bearded dragon eggs appear to have less mold than the other clutches with my previous hovabator with no included fan. Helps that you can see through the entire top as well (It’s tempered)

First the positive. The heating fan is excellent. It updates ever few seconds so can see it update live. The temp is in tenths and appears very accurate. The humidity read out also updates every few seconds and also appears accurate. The negative. The thing is just a styrofoam box. For such a high cost I would expect to at least have a plastic shell to protect it. As it is, it's very delicate and if you don't spend even more for automatic the egg turner you'll find that constant opening and closing will take it's toll on the styrofoam. To keep the humidity were you want it, you pour water into the the tray underneath the eggs, which means your humidity will be fine and and then drop dramatically when the tray is dry. (Depending on how long the heating element needs to be running.) This also means more wear and tear on the styrofoam. In conclusion, while the heating fan is great, I don't believe it justifies the price tag, since the body is just styrofoam. Also, alarms would be nice. That way if temp or humidity aren't were you want them it could beep or something.

It works great so far.. I have eggs in right now, the temperature and humidity is stable, and I have great confidence that I will ihave good result. It closes tight and much more solid that my previous incubator.

Easy to use and holds the temperature evenly. Have only had it in use for a few days so can not speak for a full time incubation and hatch.

I love my new incubator... its seems made well and the lid fits snuggly.. its quiet while running and has a large window for viewing my eggs... I'm very pleased with it so far.

I love the big window. I used the temperature & humidity & it worked with the one hatch that I did. 95% hatch so I’m happy!!

Edit to add: The company sent me a new lid to replace the broken one. I’ve now been using this incubator for years and have never had a single issue. The 1588 is my favourite incubator and always will be. I’m on a farm and have 12 incubators running at a time and my Hovabators are all the best, most reliable incubators. I have always loved this incubator and recommend it to anyone but this time it showed up damaged. I have a few of them full and was so happy when this one finally arrived so I can get all my eggs in it and the plastic is broken and has chunks all stuck between the glass. Not too impressed this time around!