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Well we have our first batch of baby chicks now. I had a 100% hatch rate after I removed the unfertilized eggs. Here is a photo of the new chickies. A couple questions for people who have done this before: 1. Should I wait until they are all dry to move em to the brooder or take the two...

Well I woke up this morning to two chicks. The third is pipped but not zipped. I will take some photos after I get the kids to school.

The wait is killing me - how long does it usually take for em to zip after they pip? The first one that pipped did so around noon and I haven't seen any movement or progress on that chick. The second chick is moving like crazy but it hasn't made much progress either. It has a little chunk of...

I have 2 pips now. The second chick that pipped is really active. I think he will zip before the other one. C'mon chickies - I have a dozen more eggs waiting to go in the incubator!

Congrats to everyone with fuzzy butts! Sorry to those of you who have had problems I got home around 1pm and I had 1 pip out of my 3 eggs. Still hasn't done anything else but I am anxiously awaiting.

Quote: Hopefully you will get the last 26. I set a total of 9 eggs over two days and I am down to 3. Six of mine were just not fertile. I can actually see the baby chicks swimming around in the last 3 eggs. I gotta stop candling them but it looks so cool that it's hard for me to stop...

How is everyone else doing with their incubation? I would love to hear how things are going. I just got done candling my 3 remaining eggs. Even with the nasty temp spike, I still have three live chicks. They were actually moving around in the egg. A totally amazing sight let me tell you...

I think I figured out why my eggs are having fertility issues... Our RIR roo died this morning No damage to him or anything but he had been looking a little bloated for the last 2 or 3 weeks. I thought he was just getting fat for the winter The breeder I purchased my RIRs from said it was...

Well I guess I have candling down pretty well... I still couldn't see anything in 3 of the first 6 eggs I put in the bator so I cracked those open and there was nothing at all.... No blood spot or anything. I think they may have been unfertilized. I couldn't see a ring or anything on the...

I candled again last night and I could make out chicken embryos on 3 out of the 9 eggs. I couldn't see veins because the eggs are quite dark. The embryos weren't even red because it was more like the shadow of the embryo was cast on the egg shell. Six were set the first day and 3 more were...

I tried to candle my eggs last night and I couldn't even see the yolks. My RIR eggs are pretty dark brown and I was just using a flashlight. Do I need to use something a little brighter?

Day 5 for me today. Is it worth trying to candle at this point? They are RIR eggs so they are various shades of brown.

I asked a question here on BYC about the oxygen needs of eggs in an incubator. It seems that eggs do indeed need oxygen even before the chicks have pipped. My incubator has a pretty tight seal but I have been opening it daily to fiddle with this or that. I hope I didn't doom my chicks by...

Quote: I am a newbie but I have read that some people run it 60% RH all the way through days 1-21. Some only go 30% on days 1-18. I kind of split the difference and went for 45%. I think 50% will be OK.

My little batch is still doing well... I am almost halfway to being able to candle them and see how things are going. Temp and humidity has been steady since I did a lil tweaking. My home made egg turner works great. It is a craft box with the bottom cut out. I have a little dowel rod...

Well I adjusted my temp in my homemade forced air incubator. It is going from 99.4 to 100.6 in each cycle now. Seems like as close as I am going to get to perfect. Humidity has been 46% each time I check. I did test before laying and I am able to get humidity as high as 79% by just putting a...

Quote: Awesome - I will look forward to communicating along the way. Do you think 7 is too few to set? I could add 2-4 more today from my hens but I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not. Oh, I think 7 is a great number to hatch. I guess you could still add some in, as it is only 1 day...

Quote: Awesome - I will look forward to communicating along the way. Do you think 7 is too few to set? I could add 2-4 more today from my hens but I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.

Quote: Just hatching 7 RIR eggs from my flock as kind of a test run before I buy some eggs.

I just put in my first batch of eggs in my new incubator. I am really new to this so I would like to know if there is someone else who has started a batch in the incubator in the past few days or plans to in the next few days.