Anyone wanna help the newbie? Tips or some advice would be so appreciated!

If you go to the Learning Center tab then to Incubating & Hatching there is a Candling Pics that may help you get a idea as to if yours are developing and how far along they are. Did you mark the eggs to know which eggs she had Mar 21st ? Humidity Level in incubator needs to be 65 % - 80% starting on 18th day to hatch. You can search forum for more candling pics and to see if dark line in question is Air Sack or Blood Ring.

I hope this helps you and you hatch some chicks

Hello there!  I am quite new to hatching eggs myself, and am working on my first batch as we speak!  but I have learned a couple things lately that might come in handy for you.  The egg with the dark line around it, are you referring to when you candle the egg, or is it on the exterior?  If you notice that dark line while your candling, I think that is a sign that the embryo was fertile and developing, but died.  I just found 3 of my eggs like that, so don't feel bad.  Someone may correct me though who has more experience in the matter.

I don't know what kind of incubator you have, but eggs need to be turned at least 3 times a day.  If you have an automatic egg turner you don't have to worry too much about it, but I don't have that so I do it by hand.  I mark one side of the egg with an X, and the other side with an O so I can keep track.  Eggs take 21 days to hatch, give or take a day from what I understand, and since you don't know how long these eggs were laid, its hard to say how long they will be in the incubator.  No more than three weeks is about all I can say.

Hopefully someone with much more experience can answer your questions with some detail.  Good luck with your eggs!

The dark line going all the way around might be a blood ring - which would indicate the egg is bad.  Since you're not sure how old each egg is or how far along they might be in incubating, I would think the best thing to do would be just leave them in the incubator and see what happens.  If some of them started on March 21st - that means they could hatch in the next few days since Wednesday would make 3 weeks. 

IF I were in your situation, I would put them in the incubator but without an automatic turner - in open egg cartons.  That way they should hatch more easily than in the turner.  Then just keep the temperature and humidity right and wait and see what happens.  I hope more experienced folks will chime in . . . .

The pointy end of the egg goes down.

Once the chicks are dry and fluffy - you can take them out of the incubator and put them in a brooder with a heat lamp.

ETA:  Chicks don't HAVE to have food/water for the first 2 or 3 days after hatching.  It's best to open the incubator as little as possible - especially if you still have unhatched eggs.  If you take chicks out of the bator, do it quickly so the unhatched eggs won't be adversely affected.

that looks like a "bad egg"

Also, yes you can take the chick out and put it in the brooder BUT if there are other chicks that have pipped or (poked holes in in egg) then you will run the chance of shrink wrapping the pipped ones in the shell and they could die.

I would suggest you leave the chick in, since the yolk has been absorbed it will be ok.

If you have to take the chick(s) out, wait until you think none of the others have pips and do it quickly.

Good luck! i will be watching for udates.

Melissa

Good luck!  I had a broody who "gave up" at day 20...luckily I had an incubator going, but it was a cold day and I didn't know how long she had been off of the eggs!  I did end up getting some of the little guys or girls to hatch...I figured better to give it a try than to throw away 20 days of work!  Hope that you have good luck with this!