First time hatcher questions. Help appreciated :)

There should be a post on here about hatching and candling. It is on the main page and has about 80 pages! The first page has a great chart of what you are supposed to see. I dont know anything about the incubator as I have a silkie who is sitting on some eggs.

 

Yes, you need to candle. I use our LED flashlight. YOu need to track the proper development of the air cell.ANd you can see really neat things inside the egg like the blood vessels and the thy chick as it grows to fill the egg. I candled a lot the first time hatching, very fun to check a few eggs each night. You will definitely need to 7 , 14 and 18th day to compare to a chart for proper aire cell development. Diagrams of air cells, duck and chicken:

http://www.poultryconnection.com/quackers/aircell.html

Plenty of pics to help you understand what you are looking at. HOnestly, many didnn't make any sense to me at all. LOL See the sticky at the top of this section in BYC,More candling photos.

http://lancaster.unl.edu/4h/Embryology/candlingphotos.shtml

http://www.poultryconnection.com/quackers/mycandlepix/candle.html

http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html

Lower/higher temp--depends on the model you have. Check the instruction booklet; most are on line as well if you have model info.

I dry hatch and follow Chookchicks cheat sheet. I do add some water if RH drops very low. Usually it bounces around following the room RH.https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/incubation-cheat-sheet


I had the same questions when learning how to hatch. Hope these resources are helpful to you.