I cannot believe how addicting this is! When I first decided to get some chickens, I NEVER imagined myself actually building an incubator and trying to hatch my own down the road!!!
So now that I'm in the middle of it, a few questions have popped into my head. I'm worried that maybe I didn't quite think this through all the way...
This all started when I had a broody hen and I figured "great time to add a new breed to the flock - I'll order some eggs for her to sit on!" Anyways, she broke her broodiness before the eggs arrived. Then I realized that I would need an incubator right away to put these eggs in.
So I built the bator. Then I got impatient waiting for the eggs, and I grabbed 8 fresh eggs out of my coop and put them in. I'm very interested to see what kind of babies my chickens end up making... Then a few days later, my Welsummer eggs arrived and I put them in the bator. Then I got even more excited and ordered another batch of eggs... Araucana this time. When they arrived, I added them to the bator.
So here's my big question: I have 3 sets of eggs in the bator, all started on different days (they're all about 3-4 days apart). When I hit day 18 for "Batch 1", what do I do with the humidity??? It will be too early for the other batches to increase the humidity at that point.
And my other question is about the candling... I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. I know that if I candle the egg and it's clear that it's not fertilized. Other than that, if I see some kind of dark mass in the egg, am I good to go???
Thank you!!!
So now that I'm in the middle of it, a few questions have popped into my head. I'm worried that maybe I didn't quite think this through all the way...
This all started when I had a broody hen and I figured "great time to add a new breed to the flock - I'll order some eggs for her to sit on!" Anyways, she broke her broodiness before the eggs arrived. Then I realized that I would need an incubator right away to put these eggs in.
So I built the bator. Then I got impatient waiting for the eggs, and I grabbed 8 fresh eggs out of my coop and put them in. I'm very interested to see what kind of babies my chickens end up making... Then a few days later, my Welsummer eggs arrived and I put them in the bator. Then I got even more excited and ordered another batch of eggs... Araucana this time. When they arrived, I added them to the bator.
So here's my big question: I have 3 sets of eggs in the bator, all started on different days (they're all about 3-4 days apart). When I hit day 18 for "Batch 1", what do I do with the humidity??? It will be too early for the other batches to increase the humidity at that point.
And my other question is about the candling... I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. I know that if I candle the egg and it's clear that it's not fertilized. Other than that, if I see some kind of dark mass in the egg, am I good to go???
Thank you!!!
