Thanks, I love to learn, and this thread is so much fun!First Off -GOOD ON YOU FOR READING EVERY POST!!- I don't have the strength, altough I do suffer slightly from FOBLO (fear of being left out)
Second! I am in the "go with the flow" camp who try to mimic the micro environment of a hen's underneaths. That being said, I do keep my incubator at steady temp/humidity, but I candle every day and let the lid stay slightly ajar so the incubator cools to about 88 degrees F. Each egg spends about 3-4 minutes with me getting examined and candled. Now I will point out that this is my first hatch, but I did lots of research and came to my own conclusions. So far I have 100% viable eggs and very strong little active chicks. I just had one kick so hard he/she made a smack noise on the side of the shell!
I believe that a small amount of time cooled and handled is not going to hurt the eggies and I would even go so far as to say it can help! But I will not know for sure until I have done more than the two hatches I have going right now. After I have collected enough data I might be able to form a solid opinion based on my current thought process.We will just wait and see!
I'm really glad to hear that!
My kids, who have been raised and home schooled by two obsessive scientists, are always asking questions like this, and as we were talking about this project, this came up, so I just figured I'd ask.
This is our first hatch, too! We borrowed a Hovabator and jumped in. Then we invited the 4-H kids to join us. The more the merrier! If we have a great hatch rate, we will have each kid (if they want to) show one of the birds at our 4-H fair this June. I hope it all works out!!
