Ok, just wanted to share my first experience with hatching in an incubator. I bought 5 fertile eggs locally and added 3 just laid eggs from my own flock to the incubator. I waited and turned and watched temperature and humidity like a dog after a big rat. I had a hard time sleeping the last week and I am actually glad it's over. Out of the 5 I bought 4 hatched and one just sat there. I finally decided that it must be dead and on the 26th day (every other egg had already hatched and chicks were in the brooder) I opened it. It was very undeveloped, not deformed or anything, just like it needed another week or so to be mature enough to hatch. The yolk was not even close to being absorbed and I just don't understand why this one egg was so far behind the others? Because I opened it I killed it and my husband is on my case about that. He thinks I'm horrible. Out of the 3 eggs of mine, one was not fertile and I threw that out and the other two hatched. So I ended up with 6 hatched out of 8. I much prefer the "let the hen do the sitting" method of hatching! I was a nervous wreck and was sure that every chick was going to die the way they looked when they hatched! I will always take advantage of my broody hens from now on and avoid the incubator!
Awesome!
