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Bee, a broody does not always get a 100% hatch either. I hatched out some Maran eggs last year under a broody australorp. 6 fully developed chicks, four live birds. I would try it again. Those shells are thick but so are the shells of wild birds. Think of quail eggs and how tiny they are... Most...

YAAAY! Its official... It works! Hooray! Go chick go!

I am not a big fan of people babies but Id put the heatpad set up like you will in the brooder, then toss the whole thing in a big cardboard box the chicks cant get out of in case they hop out of the nest. Add extra extra water, cover the big box with a sheet to keep in the warm and moist and...

Ion! You are so close! So excited!

Bee, just wanted to say that even though our personal choices are very different, you have my utmost respect as a person. Let the naysayers fall by the wayside... If there is one thing I think we can both agree on it is that lives have a beginning and an end and it is our responsibility to make...

Bee, I dont think you have to appologize. Some people who are not fit to keep chickens insist on keeping them though. I know one person who had a hen get frostbite so bad the legs fell off (!!!) And she was sitting on the Internet trying to decide whether or not to treat the legs as they were...

I know with my chicks I err on the side of cooler temps! They can always huddle together right under the lamp if they're a little chilly, but they can't make it cooler if they're over heating. Plus cooler temps means they may feather out faster meaning they can go outside sooner! I am so looking...

:P Except chickens develop so fast that it would have to be hourly practically... I can see it now! Hour 56; heart begins to form. Hour 68; eye start to form, hour 72 heart starts beating.... 21 days is faster than rabbits go from being concieved to born... And chicks are born fully mobile with...

Ronott, it felt a little like you were telling people to go buy a price of equipment they didn't necisarially need if they wanted to candle and that was the only way to do it. I dont like when people have an "you have to do it this one way" attitude. If you are lifting an egg out of a nest to...

Rotnot, I think the whole point is using something you already have available or is multi purpose. If you have no use for a large flashlight and your only goal in candling eggs and you wanna buy something for it.... Buy a candler. :P Nobody's stopping you. If you happen to have a flashlight of...

*shrugs* Every LED flashlight I have looks blue or blueish to me. But my mom has an old fashioned full sized maglight she got when I was a kid for camping. The thing weighs more than my chickens and runs on like four D sized batteries. It has one little bulb in it that is not an LED and it does...

Bee, if I may I learner something when I hatched out my Maran eggs. If you are using an LED flashlight, try using a very strong light with a yellow incandescent bulb instead. My dad explained it to me pretty clearly being the science whiz he is... Blue light scatters and reflects off of lots of...

It is crazy to think but before those eggs ever even begin forming a brain, the basis for all sensation and intelligent life, they have eyes and a detectable heartbeat. Craziness.

I was just gonna post a few photos here and hatch along with you, if you don't mind. I think in this case since I don't have a broody heat pad and the nest will be exposed to air, that the dog fur would work as insulation without depriving the eggs of air even though the fur is thicker than...

Bee, I am getting ready to start a similar experiment but with a heat lamp instead of a heat pad. I happen to keep reptiles, and know other people who do as well, so heat lamps are very reliable to get and multi-purpose around here. I will be building a nest similar to yours and using a heat...

Bee, 45% is very high for a dry incubation. Humidity for dry incubation tends to be 25%-35%... There's not a WHOLE lot of moisture getting added to a chicken's nest I imagine except for when it rains so the humidity would be low. When the chicks start to hatch, them cracking their own shells...

Chik, that's right. But it doesn't work the way people hope... A lower temp will hatch out all the eggs.... A higher temp will only hatch out the boys!!! :( There is some evidence that chicken eggs can be converted from males into females like reptile eggs... But in this case if you bred them...

Bee, being a science junkie I can answer this! In some reptiles the heat changes the way the chromosomes in the egg develop. The egg simply contains all the right things to develop into either gender and the temperature controls how it develops. Some reptiles can even have they typical...

My broody left her nest for 1/2 hour every day in low 60's upper 50's. Not sure if that means anything, though, since only six even developed (shipped eggs).

I wish I had fertilized eggs available in my back yard... It would make experiments so much easier! Maybe if the one rooster from the vet that does crow softening on roos is still available when I have money again I will get him. 9_9; I would love a rooster for fertilized eggs...!