First time hatching eggs!

[jenniferlamar70]

Tips and tricks from the pros? Will be incubating and hatchingy first chicks. Would love all the help I can get!!

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

My top tip would be double check your thermometer and hygrometer. By double checking with known to be correct ones is a must.

Also this article is a fantastic read ~ https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

Good luck

 

[AmyLynn2374]

My top tip would be double check your thermometer and hygrometer. By double checking with known to be correct ones is a must.

Also this article is a fantastic read ~ https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

Good luck

xs 2. The biggest and most important tip is to check your thermometers and hygrometer for accuracy. A faulty thermometer can cause you your whole hatch (I found out the hard way on my first hatch.)

Second tip, read, read, read and ask questions. Listen to the advice (which will be very conflicting, cause we all do it different

) and take away what makes the most sense to you.

The only certainty in hatching is that you need steady temps (99.5 for forced air and 101-102 for still air taken near the tops of the eggs) to have a decent hatch. Lower temps will cause a delay in hatch while higher temps can cause an early hatch and both run risks of causeing development problems. (With tha being said, small variations be will fine. My bator runs slightly warm on averge my hatches start day 19/20 and my chicks are perfecly healthy.)

Humidity- don't "listen" to the bator instructions on humidity. They are generic and one size does NOT fit all. If you are not in a high elevation and are using a table top incubator (especially styro) I'd recommend a low humidity incubation and monitoring the air cells to know how to adjust for your eggs. I use this method with great success: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

NEVER trust the gages on the incubators unless they have been checked. Especially the bators that TSC sells such as the Little Giant and Farm Innovators.

Shipped eggs are harder to get decent hatches from and need special attention, varying on how damaged the air cells are. Local eggs are much easier to incubate and get decent hatches.

There are two camps of hatchers that have extrememly different philosophies of hatching. Hands on and hands off. Neither is "wrong". But you'll get very conflicting info between the two groups. Most info is presented from the hands off perspective. Here's some hatching guidlines from a hands on perspective: http://hatching411.weebly.com/ Both sides get great hatches, just do things differently.

Good luck with your hatch!

 

[jenniferlamar70]

My top tip would be double check your thermometer and hygrometer. By double checking with known to be correct ones is a must.

Also this article is a fantastic read ~ https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

Good luck

Thanks I'm going to sit down and read this right now.

 

[jenniferlamar70]

xs 2.  The biggest and most important tip is to check your thermometers and hygrometer for accuracy. A faulty thermometer can cause you your whole hatch (I found out the hard way on my first hatch.)

Second tip, read, read, read and ask questions. Listen to the advice (which will be very conflicting, cause we all do it different  ) and take away what makes the most sense to you.

The only certainty in hatching is that you need steady temps (99.5 for forced air and 101-102 for still air taken near the tops of the eggs) to have a decent hatch. Lower temps will cause a delay in hatch while higher temps can cause an early hatch and both run risks of causeing development problems. (With tha being said, small variations be will fine. My bator runs slightly warm on averge my hatches start day 19/20 and my chicks are perfecly healthy.)

Humidity- don't "listen" to the bator instructions on humidity.  They are generic and one size does NOT fit all. If you are not in a high elevation and are using a table top incubator (especially styro) I'd recommend a low humidity incubation and monitoring the air cells to know how to adjust for your eggs. I use this method with great success: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

NEVER trust the gages on the incubators unless they have been checked. Especially the bators that TSC sells such as the Little Giant and Farm Innovators.

Shipped eggs are harder to get decent hatches from and need special attention, varying on how damaged the air cells are. Local eggs are much easier to incubate and get decent hatches.

There are two camps of hatchers that have extrememly different philosophies of hatching. Hands on and hands off. Neither is "wrong".  But you'll get very conflicting info between the two groups. Most info is presented from the hands off perspective. Here's some hatching guidlines from a hands on perspective: http://hatching411.weebly.com/    Both sides get great hatches, just do things differently.

Good luck with your hatch!

Thanks for the link. I will also be reading it very soon. My eggs are being shipped but unfortunately they didn't have what I wanted locally. I got my incubator on amazon.com. hope it works well. It had really good reviews. Boy after reading this I'm even more nervous lol.

 

[RubyNala97]

Thanks for the link. I will also be reading it very soon. My eggs are being shipped but unfortunately they didn't have what I wanted locally. I got my incubator on amazon.com. hope it works well. It had really good reviews. Boy after reading this I'm even more nervous lol.

Biggest issues with shipped eggs are damage to the air cells. The air cell can become loose and wobbly or worst case scenario it totally detaches from the fat end of the egg and freely floats around. You need to be extra, extra gentle with shipped eggs. Carefully unpack them and let them rest, fat end up, for 12-24 hours. Candle them and see how much damage they have. Are you planning on using an auto-turner or hand turning? I do not lay shipped eggs down flat in early incubation. I keep them upright in cutdown egg cartons. I do not touch them for the first 24 hours of incubation. On day 2, I gently tilt them from one side of the cup to the other at a 45 degree angle. A lot depends on how bad the air cell damage is. Have you ever candled eggs before?

 

[jenniferlamar70]

Biggest issues with shipped eggs are damage to the air cells. The air cell can become loose and wobbly or worst case scenario it totally detaches from the fat end of the egg and freely floats around. You need to be extra, extra gentle with shipped eggs. Carefully unpack them and let them rest, fat end up, for 12-24 hours. Candle them and see how much damage they have. Are you planning on using an auto-turner or hand turning? I do not lay shipped eggs down flat in early incubation. I keep them upright in cutdown egg cartons. I do not touch them for the first 24 hours of incubation. On day 2, I gently tilt them from one side of the cup to the other at a 45 degree angle. A lot depends on how bad the air cell damage is. Have you ever candled eggs before?

The incubator I got is supposed to auto turn. This is my first time hatching eggs so I'm new to everything to do with it lol. I've been reading Alot and talking to alot of different people. It's hard because no one's infoaches up lol. How do you know who is right?

 

[feedman77]

I lot of information it's what people have found work for them.

Try a method see if it works. If it does try to repeat it. If it doesn't make adjustments and try again.

What kind of incubator did you get?

I personally dry incubate. Try to keep humidity 25 to 30. Then raise humidity to 65 to 75 for hatch. What seem to work for me.

I follow the protocols mentioned above for shipped eggs. There has been some good advice given.

Good luck with your hatch.