First Time Hatching - incubator edition

[cluckingheck]

So, this is my first incubator and first time hatching chicks in general ( other than the 3 my broody pullet hatched, she did all of the work ) and the chicks are going to a guy I went to high school with. He’s wanting to get into chicken keeping and asked if I was selling any laying hens. I’m not selling any of my girls, so I told him I could hatch eggs from them but the chicks would all be mutts. He was okay with that, so here begins the journey. 22 eggs set and hopefully most of them turn out to be pullets ( and most of them hatch! ).

I currently have the incubator set at 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity is at 53%. Temperature of the room is 69 and humidity is at 34%

 

[cluckingheck]

This is day 5 and all of them were fertile except for #19. I’ll give it a few more days and then candle it again to see if I missed something as it’s an egg with a dark shell. I doubt I’m wrong about it, but oh well. I’m a little worried about #8 because it’s air cell is more on the side than the bottom. Anyways, do I need to adjust humidity or anything based on the air cell growth? Does everything look to be growing good? Any concerns you can see?

 

[cluckingheck]

First baby is here!!!

 

[cluckingheck]

Nope!

I'll bet! Can't imagine.
How long do you have to be gone?

My last class ends at 10:50 and then I have an hour and half drive home. At least I have the camera set up....

 

[cluckingheck]

https://imgur.com/a/UW9vJxx

they’ve figured out their food

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Humidity in the incubator is at 50% and the room is 36%. The humidity in the incubator dropped down to 26% sometime during the night because it ran out of water.
And, no, I didn’t calibrate the thermometer and hydrometer. I definitely should have

The humidity dropping for short periods of time shouldn't hurt anything. The only time you need to be careful about keeping it more consistent is at hatch.

 

[cluckingheck]

I'm jealous that your eggs are so easy to see....ha ha. Mine were super dark and impossible to see through. What breed of chickens are you incubating? I'm going to try to use my handheld candler this evening (Day 10) to see if it works better on my eggs than the NR 360 candler.

The leghorns’ eggs are definitely the easiest to see but the ISA browns are the hard ones. They’re dark brown and they vary from each other; some are easier to see into than others. The chicks are all going to be mutts, basically. I have leghorn, BSL and ISA brown eggs incubating. As for roosters, I have a BSL ( BR/RIR ), some kind of cuckoo maran cross, a BR, two black australorps, and a black ameraucana. I doubt my ameraucana fertilized any eggs because the girls chase him and actually square up to him.

I have a hand candler but it’s not very bright at all. The NR360 light is way brighter

 

[CluckNDoodle]

From looking it this? Do you think the middle eggs turn less?

EDIT: They turn less in the center, my head was apparently on backward when I wrote this. lol Just flip my comment around.

They actually turn more because the circle is smaller. So instead of a 1/4 turn it's a 1/2 turn but the size of the egg would make a difference and whether an egg slips a bit would also. The rotation of each egg isn't exactly precise every single rotation but they turn well enough in both the interior and the exterior ring. If you mark each egg on the side you would see that by the end of the day that they won't retain the identical rotation. It's the same you would expect from a broody hen when she resettles and moves eggs.
I just like organizing my eggs, lol, a regular sized egg will still fit in the center ring but they are slightly smaller slots.

 

[cluckingheck]

 

[cluckingheck]

Another one has pipped