About to incubate for the first time

[Roxannemc]

Brown eggs are hard to see into.
I candle at 10 days.you should see veins some see movement i only see dark masses in brown usually as I always seem to get breeds with brown eggs. So not too techical ....day 10 i look for about half the egg to be dark maybe a l ittle more than half 3/4.
Day 17 i candle again...usually i see all dark in the egg.
Might see a faint air cell.The rest is black That usually mean I have a chick in there and they go to lockdown nest day I am not too quick to throw eggs out .Some are viable you dont think are.
if y ou are not sure smell them The really bad dead ones will smell bad Infaxt if youbatorstart ot smellreally eggy smelleach of your eggs whne you candle ....one is a stinker .
Throw any that smell bad out. they can be bad and not smell but the ones in danger of eventually blowing up will be the smelly ones. .

 

[ntsorvas]

Both breeds shipped from different breeders. I let sit about 15 hours before putting in. Temp holding steady at 101 now, humidity varying from 40 to 60, it got up to almost 70 second day so I took out a vent cap and removed some water, now holding steady at 45. No smelly eggs yet. All I can see in the brown eggs is a dark mass, I thought it would be harder to see thru the green eggs. Actually saw heart beating on those 6 tonight, it was awesome.

 

[Smithyard Farm]

good luck!

 

[ntsorvas]

Thanks,excited and nervous at the same time

 

[ozexpat]

forget the water. let it dry up.

read the thread n dry incubation

good luck! new year peeps!!

 

[chicken pickin]

I have read on byc that it is best to keep one vent plug out for fresh air exchange and itll also hopefully keep your humidity from spiking until lock down when you can put the plug or plugs back in to hold in the humidity. My incubator only has one plug but I leave it out and will replace at day 18. Also when you add water every few days expect the humidity to rise some itll go back down. Mine stays between 42-46% but when it runs out of water every few days itll go down to the 20's, Ill add water and the humidity will go up to the 50's, It evens back out pretty quickly.

 

[Roxannemc]

Both breeds shipped from different breeders. I let sit about 15 hours before putting in. Temp holding steady at 101 now, humidity varying from 40 to 60, it got up to almost 70 second day so I took out a vent cap and removed some water, now holding steady at 45. No smelly eggs yet. All I can see in the brown eggs is a dark mass, I thought it would be harder to see thru the green eggs. Actually saw heart beating on those 6 tonight, it was awesome.

Wait until your first chick hatches its unbelievable You feel like a god bringing a living thing into the world...but warning!!!Its SO ADDICTING!!!

 

[Roxannemc]

45 is fine.
HUMMM Shipped eggs can be a challenge.Often get scrambled in shipping .If I could give any new person advice from personal experience i would say get local eggs the first few times .You willalmost certainly get a few anyway.
Dont want to be a downer but you can do everything right and get very poor results with shipped I dont say this to discourage you.
You well can get 5 or 6 chicks but i was so dissapointed my first hatch as i expected many chicks,out of 12 eggs i figured 10..(HAHA).. and i got zero!
I could have cryed BE-yond disapointed!!
.Followed everything to the letter... thought i did some terrible thing anyway and didnt know what.Still dont know what i could have done better if anything as i was so green but i did eggtopsy a t the breeders suggestion and learned some things
Now i have an incubator that keeps the temp automatically at 99.5 and also have learned some tricks from BYC ppl to help keep my other bators temp more steady

As i hatched more shipped eggs and read others entries on here about their shipped hatches I saw most dont get a lot with shipped.
I once got 10 of 14 so its possible but that was my best.
3-5 has been my average hatch.My atttude now is if you have a breed you really want cant find the breed near you so buy shipped and you get 2 or 3 i am satisfied. Figure i can raised my own if i want more.Some ppl have said they get 10 of 15 every time... thats wonderful!!They must be exceptional...but for the most part the ppl i converse with on here dont.

 

[ntsorvas]

I checked locally and couldn't find any near me in the breeds that I was looking for. I'm going to see how this hatch goes and prob buy the fan kit for my unit. So far out of 13 eggs in, 7 for sure are growing with another 2 being questionable, the other 4 are pretty positive a no go. I won't get discouraged though. Seeing that little heartbeat gave me chills

 

[hereorthere]

Roxannemc said in brief - shipped eggs = not always successful. Local eggs = better. Let me ask you guys this.... I've got my own fertile eggs and am storing them in my Mud Room (not insulated and runs cooler than outside many times.) It's 40s & wet here in Portland area. How long can I hold onto these eggs until my incubator arrives (actually gets ordered and then arrives)? I've read about the fertile eggs being in suspeded animation but how long does that last for? And then before going into the incubator, these eggs would need to come to room temps, right? Question is how long is room temp- 2, 4, 6hrs?

Thanks all for your answers.... apologies to the original poster for stealing the thread for a little bit!

45 is fine.
HUMMM Shipped eggs can be a challenge.Often get scrambled in shipping .If I could give any new person advice from personal experience i would say get local eggs the first few times .You willalmost certainly get a few anyway.
Dont want to be a downer but you can do everything right and get very poor results with shipped I dont say this to discourage you.
You well can get 5 or 6 chicks but i was so dissapointed my first hatch as i expected many chicks,out of 12 eggs i figured 10..(HAHA).. and i got zero!
I could have cryed BE-yond disapointed!!