Newbie Hatching Thread!

Hello! I finally convinced my parents to buy me an incubator- after about 10 years of having ducks, and 2 years of having chickens.

So, today (2-17-12) I will try to hatch my first clutch of eggs! I will be using a Brinsea Mini Advance incubator, and will be attempting to incubate and hatch 6 Bantam Buff Brahma eggs, and 1 Bantam WCB Polish egg.

My chickens have been very irregular layers lately, so I have been collecting hatching eggs for a week. But it has also been around 30-40 degrees F here, and some eggs have either been frozen and cracked (and thrown away), or been exposed to very cold weather, but not frozen, and saved for hatching. They have been saved in a Styrofoam egg tray for a week, with one end tilted on top of a book. Any extremely dirty eggs were not saved, but eggs with small dirt patched were spot-cleaned, and totally clean eggs were saved without being washed.

I am not sure of the fertility of any eggs, so I plan to candle on the 7th and 18th day.

I don't expect a very good hatch rate, because of my extreme newbie-ness, but I certainly hope at least one chickie makes it to the end! I'll keep everyone updated on my attempts at incubating, and I hope someone will be able to answer any questions I come up with! I'm always looking for advice, so your welcome to share!

Other newbies and experienced incubation experts can join this thread as well! Thank you for reading!

Ah ha! First Question!

The oldest Egg in the incubator is a Braham egg of questionable fertility. I collected it 8 days ago.

Just now, I found a Polish egg that I know is probably fertile (seen Mr. Roo courting his ladies)

If i replaced the oldest egg, which has been in the incubator for a couple hours with this new polish egg, what will happen?

Well good luck with those silkie eggs! I wish you a good hatch rate, and mostly pullets!

Day three, and everything seems good! I love my Mini Advance! It does practically everything for me, which is good, because I barely know what I'm doing...  The temperature has been pretty stable, and every time I pass by my 'egg shrine' the temp. reads 99.5 or 99.6. I've already had to refill the water dish twice, so I hope the eggs are keeping up their humidity!

I don't know how you experianced incubation people can be so patient. It's only Day 3, and I already want a baby chick to carry around in my pocket!

Day 7! This was my first time candling an egg, and I must say, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen! I had 7 eggs in my incubator, and 5 of them had cute little kicking embryos! I feel like a proud adoptive mother!

One of the Polish eggs looked clear and infertile, but one of the Brahma eggs might have had something growing, but I couldn't tell. I made sure what I saw wasn't a blood ring, so it wouldn't explode on me, but I'm going to leave it in the incubator just a couple more days. Good idea? It didn't have any veins at all, so it it an early quitter? I'm sorry I don't have a helpful picture, but I didn't want to drop an egg while trying to take a picture...

Anyone else having fun incubating chickies? This thread is quite dead, I'm sorry...

Day 14! Only a week left!

Oh, seven days will go so slowly... I looked at so many pictures of baby chicks, and its killing me... I must be patient, I must be patient, I must be patient....

I forgot to update this thread! on Day 9, I candled the two eggs I marked IF, infertile, and again, saw nothing. So I took them out, and cracked them open. Nothing growing, so I don't feel bad about it. They just looked like regular eggs you would eat for breakfast. Don't worry, we didn't eat them. (Ewww, gross thought.)

So I candled again tonight, and Its amazing how much bigger the embryos are! It's getting hard to see through my Brahma eggs, but I still see veins and a moving glob, that I hope will become a real live fluffy chick. My dad was quite amazed, and a little miffed that soon he will have to buy chick feed again.

I candled the remaining Polish egg, and the embryo was moving around quite actively. I must have disturbed it, by shining a light in its still-developing eyes... Before I put it back, I glimpsed little toes against the shell. It was like the embryo was waving at me. I hope it grows into a beautiful healthy Polish chick, just like it's mommy, Shanaynay. I'm hoping for mostly hens, because I can't have another rooster, and I don't want to deal with finding a home for it.

Wish me luck in my incubation endeavors, and in return, I send the best of hatching rates to everyone hatching now and in the future!

Doesn't it? I keep checking the incubator about once every hour, even though I KNOW nothing is happening now! I still have six days left! My sister caught me talking to the eggs, begging them to all hatch and be cute and fuzzy little pullets. But she knows I'm crazy, so its okay.