first time hatching eggs

[hfitch]

I am hatching eggs for the first time in my homemade incubator My question is, when they have hatched, I leave them in the incubator for a couple of days. During tbat couple of days, I do not give food or wager, right? And what about when I move to brookder? Do I give both food and water right away or do I just give water at first then food later? Thank you in advance!!! Getting pretty excited

 

[blucoondawg]

I have food and water in the brooder when I put them in there. No you don't put any in the incubator

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You don't need to keep them in the incubator for days. If your eggs hatch or there are no more pips you can take them out. I take mine out as they are dry, very quickly and my humidity is rising due to them hatchin so no worry of losing much moisture (which is what I'm trying to do- keep humidity 60% not rising past 70%).

 

[hildar]

I have never left chicks in my bator, they can harm the other eggs if they roll them around. This is why as soon as they are dried off about 30 minutes to 1 hour I remove them. A few have stayed longer if they hatch while I am in bed asleep, however the next morning they are placed in brooder. I don't want to lose any babies due to one being in there moving around over them and knocking eggs into each other. However this year we are doing some different and have them in cartons and some still on the screen laying down, but I wanted to see which one hatches better. But still I don't want to take chances with babies walking all over the eggs.

 

[blucoondawg]

I left mine in the incubator running around this hatch and ended up losing 3 chicks at point of hatch. One had a shell cap from a previously hatched egg shoved up against it and dried on over the area the chick was working at and couldn't hatch. The other 2 dead chicks were partially zipped and still died. I will be doing it different next time