Homemade Incubator

[LouBlue95]

And I have chicken fever still
I've had it for 5 years now. Lol I love chickens a the breeds I went from having all bantams to both bantams and large fowl now I'm just on large fowl with no bantams. My favorite is when I have a broody hen to sit on my eggs. So far one of my game birds went broody more then 3 times in the summer.

 

[ToxicLily]

Alright so update time! Today being day 7 (assuming when i set is counted as day 1) I candled the eggs. Two eggs had nothing in it, no vein, no floating anything they were i guess unfertile. From the remaining eggs about 3-4 of them might be dead. The rest seemed healthy alive and some were moving while i was candling. omg it was sooo cute! im going to leave the maybe dead eggs in there for another 2 days and then check them to see if they are different just to be sure.

 

[LouBlue95]

If they have a blood ring they are dead
The blood ring is a thick thing around the egg pretty easy to determine
Atleast you have some growing! Good for the first hatch
Especially in a home made incubator

 

[ToxicLily]

The reason I said maybe is that the shell is too thick to see through. I would hope that if they are alive then it should become more apparent in the next few days if not out they go. Mom's very excited that Cookie's egg is developing. She's a Brahma and theres a chance that our duccle is the father of her chick.

 

[ToxicLily]

Ay Ay Ay! Yesterday I had to accompany mom to the store, so I left my sister in charge of the incubator. Apparently she forgot she put a piece of cardboard on top of the lid to correct the low temp she had percieved. From the remaining 21 eggs I had suspected 3-4 were already dead. So that meant there was 17 ish that were alive. well.. when i candled them last night, i counted 7 alive 14 maybe/defdead. ACK

Today I rechecked them all, (i had placed the def alive ones to one part of the incubator) those were totally fine, but from the 14 potentially dead I found that 5 are still alive (they didnt die and were moving), but the rest definitely died.

I am now down to 12 Alive eggs. All because she forced the incubator to overheat sigh.... Oh well you live and learn, At least it provided an excellent opportunity to teach her what to look for when candling eggs. She did feel bad about the ones that died, though. 9 were dead (which means 4 from previous check plus 5 new ones)

 

[ToxicLily]

More bad news, came home incubator was still running, then when i checked 30 mins later the bulb had gone out. I replaced the bulb but I dont know if it affected the eggs.

Edit: They are all still alive yay! Candled them, made kissy noises (not on the egg shell but loud enough so theyd hear) and well they got really excited inside! x) Also I think there might be twins inside an egg. Is there any source I can compare what I saw to?

 

[twentynine]

What are you using for a thermostat?

 

[ToxicLily]

Its in the first post all chicks were still alive today but the second bulb burned out. U put a thick blanket on top while i went to buy a replacement. I sent complaints to ge for defective bulbs. Eggs are in the incu and i will be checking when temperature rises. Im not riskin further heat loss. I got bad luck with my first bulb pack. Geesh. If anyone has a brand to recommend for light bulbs i am open to it.

 

[yellowherb]

If you do have twins, watch that egg carefully near hatch time. I've heard (no experience with it yet) that one will often pip the small end of the shell. You may have to assist hatch the twins to save them both. There was a youtube video(

) of someone assisting a twin hatch. If you do not know how to assist hatch, it's time to read up on it and there are some good posts here on BYC how to help

I applaud you on your homemade incubator. I love it's simplicity and hope it works out well. Good luck with the hatch!