In his workshop in Hamilton, Donald Bethune has been producing small incubators for schools, universities, zoo aviaries, and hobbyists since the late 1950’s. A Massey University graduate, Donald is both managing director and the drive behind the design and development of all hatchery equipment in Dominion’s range.

Every incubator and brooder has been designed to meet the needs of specific user groups from hobbyists to serious commercial breeders.

“We have had all kinds of eggs from ostriches to parrots to ducks hatched in our incubators. We have even had tuatara eggs hatched in them,” Donald told Rural Living.

Eggs need to be kept in a warm environment, with carefully controlled humidity and must be turned at least three times a day – with the industry standard being one turn every hour. 

Manual incubators need someone to turn each egg individually while semi-automatic incubators have a turning gird which is turned manually using a push-pull system and turns all the eggs at once. Fully automatic incubators, as the name suggests, turns all the eggs automatically every hour.

Hatcher incubators are used during the last days of the incubation process when the actual hatching of the chick will take place. The actual time when this takes place depends on the bird type. 

During the hatching phase of the incubation process, the eggs are not turned as this would interfere with the hatching. Therefore the hatcher incubator has no egg turning system, but temperature and humidity levels still need to be monitored. During the hatching stage, the humidity levels of incubator are increased to assist the chick hatching through the hard egg shell.

Something Donald is proud of is the supply of refurbished hatchery units to third world countries.

“How do subsidence income families in the third world acquire a $10,000 chicken hatchery? We’ve sent them to Botswana, Kenya and Malawi at a fraction of the cost of a new unit.”

Among the dusty, redundant egg incubators scattered around New Zealand from when poultry farms did their own incubating, Donald has identified one particular type which is ideal for upgrading and exporting.

The Multiplo range for 1,000 to 10,000 eggs had solid 2” thick, sheetmetal lined, Redwood cabinets, and a compact design, so most are still quite sound.

Also, their galvanized steel, unique combination tray design, means that a separate hatcher incubator is not needed. Because no Multiplos were auto-turning, they now have no commercial value in N.Z., but that is no problem where unemployment rates pass 50%.

Consequently, Dominion Incubators is able to to upgrade these incubators by replacing all electrical componentry with the same high tech systems as used in the latest machines, raising hatchability rates far above when those incubators were new.

But because all the steelwork and cabinets are original, only needing some refurbishment, the cost remains low.