First time incubating: how do they look so far?

[Shabana]

Crikey !!!! I don't know what I was expecting when I candled my first ever egg but it wasnt that !! As a mother of 4 its not as if I'm unused to life beginning-embryo type of stuff, but this blew my socks off !!
It reminded me of those Halloween gobstoppers which look like eye balls with red veins... my eyeball thingy was zooming about. Wow.

My husband was also taken aback a bit i think but he said (and this is why i love him) stop shining the light on it shabana, your upsetting it.

Bless !

 

[Pipe Dreaming]

That's awesome!! I know what you mean, the first time I saw that embryo fluttering around it was like I was witnessing the miracle of life for the first time - so exciting!! Congrats on your eggs, sounds like they're on track too! Best of luck with them

 

[crazyfeathers]

My chicks are hatching as expected on Easter day. This is my second successful hatch, it sure makes me feel good knowing my hard work and dedication have brought new lives. I have never marked the air cells and have had 93-95% hatch rate, (infertile eggs). My temperature stayed steady at 99.5 but my humidity hopped around a bit for the first 18 days 40-50%. I obviously raise it to 65% for last 3 days. I have a farm innovators still air incubator from fleet farm with an egg turner. Good luck on all of your hatches, it is indeed fun!

 

[Pipe Dreaming]

That's encouraging because I couldn't see the air cells at all in the darker eggs. I'll be happy when I can read the humidity in there.. now it's all a guessing game. The water tray has been empty for a few days now, seems the general consensus is that too much humidity causes more problems than low humidity for the first 18 days.
It's going to be hard, but I'm not going to touch them again until day 14.

 

[Pyxis]

That's encouraging because I couldn't see the air cells at all in the darker eggs. I'll be happy when I can read the humidity in there.. now it's all a guessing game. The water tray has been empty for a few days now, seems the general consensus is that too much humidity causes more problems than low humidity for the first 18 days.
It's going to be hard, but I'm not going to touch them again until day 14.

If you can't see the air cells and want to be sure humidity is good, you can actually weight the eggs to track it. An egg should lose 15% of its weight over incubation, so you can calculate how much weight it should lose, divide that by three, and that's how much weight it should lose each week. If you weigh and it's not losing enough weight, the humidity is too high. Not enough, and the humidity is too low. Of course for it to work you have to weigh it the first time before incubation starts, so this wouldn't help for this time, but it's good to know for the future

 

[chickienewbie88]

And a lot of people have recommended dry incubation too (20-30% humidity for the first 18 days). I'm doing my first incubation now, actually going on lock down tomorrow! I have silkie eggs on one side of the Bator and some bantam mix on the other. I noticed at day 14 that the silkie eggs' air cell is looking good but the bantams has barely developed so everyone on here advised me to run dry until lockdown. We'll see what happens! Good luck with everyone's hatches here! Looks like a bunch of first timers and it looks like we're all addicted to it already! Lol. Fingers crossed for 100% hatch rate for everyone here! <3

 

[Pipe Dreaming]

I bought a hygrometer yesterday even though I have one coming on the mail also.. I put it in yesterday and it's reading low 30's. I filled the smallest trough yesterday also.. I don't think I'd want it to dip any lower than that and of course without doing the salt test who knows how accurate the hygrometer is. So before I leave for work this morning I'll pull it out and try to see how accurate it is with the salt test.
I'm happy to see several first timers on this thread. Can't wait to see how everyone does! @chickennewbie88 - good luck!

 

[Pipe Dreaming]

Hygrometer was off by 5% (reading too low) tried to turn the dial..but couldn't so I just taped a piece of paper to it that says "add 5".

 

[Shabana]

OMG they are tweeting in their shells !! I had no idea they would be so loud. They are porcelain sablepoots but sound like seagulls !!!
I can hear tapping too. We are on day 19.
Gosh this is properly stressful !

I have 2/3 filled both reservoirs of my brinsea Eco 20 and taken out the dividers and stopped the cradle rocking them. My eco glow brooder is all systems go as despite the warm weather my dependable broodies are blissfully unaware that their expertise is desperately needed

Please please tell me if I've missed anything.
I have pebbles in the water and chick crumb at the ready.
I feel all of a dither !!

 

[Pipe Dreaming]

Oh how exciting! My 6 go into lockdown tomorrow. I'll pull the turner out and get the humidity up. Candled just now..all 6 are alive and I even saw a perfect chick foot through one of the eggs. It was so cool!
Good luck on your hatching!