Abut to incubate for the first time in a homemade incubator....

[CyndiChick]

I have read that some give them up to a week extra... I was going to wait 48 hours and do the float test. If I try waiting a whole week I might develop a drinking problem lol

 

[CyndiChick]

So I did the float test.... all of the ones I had left floated. But today I noticed a smell in the incubator, so I checked them again and candled them. I took out 12 eggs, leaving only 5 blue wheaton ameraucana eggs, and 4 lavendar orpington eggs. I eggtopsied and of the GNH, 2 had begun developing, the rest were just yolky. The other ameraucana eggs had one that had a visible embryo (looks like about day 7 or so) and the two lavender orps both had embryos at about the same stage. Most had no development at all. I just don't know what went wrong. I cleaned everything except the eggs prior to setting them, I kept the humidity and temp in the recommended range (except one spike up to 106, and one drop due to power outage late in the incubation) turned them 3 or 5 times a day. I'm so devastated and upset right now.

I still have the 9 eggs from this set, and 12 SLWs from Chickengirl1304 in there. I'm praying and crossing fingers for the rest of those. Going to go candle the SLWs in a bit, when I calm down. They are on day 8, so hopefully I see something that gives me hope!