How hard is Incubating eggs?

[Kristy in WA]

I"m reading these threads about incubating eggs and wondering how difficult it is? Does a good incubator keep the humidity and temperature right, or do I still have to adjust things? I know some of them turn the eggs. My friend has chickens (small bantams) and has fertilized eggs, and has an incubator. She actually let me borrow it last year to incubate some eggs, but I was too busy. This year, we are getting chickens, and I want to incubate some of her eggs. So, is it a really tricky thing to do? Kristy

 

[gabrielle1976]

the cheaper the incubator some times the more complicated it is. I have a Little giant still air and it was doing grate till it got unplugged and my cat decided to jump on top of it and he must have bumped the temp knob , so for the past 12 hours I have been fighting with it to get it to a stable temp again.
Once the temp is set though as long as the temp in the room dosnt shift to much it stays pretty good. Same with the humidity. I have to hand turn the eggs so that makes the temp and humidity go down then back up.
I dont find it very complicated so far, but honestly if I would have had 150-200 dollers or what not to spend or more I would have gotten a much better one with auto turner and such.

 

[HappyHatch'en]

It is not hard....you can do it easily with some research and your friends help. I guess people just like to tinker...the ultimate goal, with luck at hand, is to have a 100% hatch rate...I guess you get an A for a grade with a gold star on your forehead when you do achieve 100%...I don't know.
Consistent temperatures(99.9), proper humidity (45-55%) and turn the eggs minimum of three times/day (pointed end down). Turning eggs the 1'st 14 days is important...odd amount of times.
Try not to open lid except to turn eggs and add water.
Each time you use the incubator, you will gain knowledge and experience....it's like climbing a steep hill... once you at the top and look back, you can see it was that hard after all.
Good Luck
HappyHatch'en

 

[Kristy in WA]

I'll be getting around 15-20 bantam eggs from a friend and also her incubator. I think I'll have to turn them. I'm going to start them 3 weeks before my chicks arrive on April 8th. I'm going to try and have them hatch the day before I pick up my chicks. Then, I'm hoping the hatched chicks and my bought chicks will both be 1 day old, and they can live together in the brooder??? Will that work? EVERYTHING is new to me. I need to get a book about all of this! Kristy

 

[newchickenfamily]

Quote:
It should work fine to hatch your own out at the same time that your new chicks arrive.

 

[MandyH]

Incubating is not hard at all, it's trying to stop incubating that's hard. LOL, once you start you will try to hatch every egg you come across for the rest of your life!!!

 

[Akane]

Getting 100% hatch rate can be hard. Just getting something to hatch is easy. You don't have to be as exact as everyone tries to be if you don't want every last egg to hatch. Most try for every egg though even when we don't need that many chicks.

Chicks can be mixed when they are different ages. I've put 1 week olds and 3 week olds together when the 3 week olds were bantams and the young ones standards so they were about the same size. Just make sure the younger ones are steady on their feet before mixing and are about the same size. Adding newly hatched chicks to chicks that are already active can cause problems but within hours or overnight the newly hatched chicks can hold their own with similar sized chicks.

 

[embkm]

Quote:
I set my eggs to hatch the day before the feed store gets theirs in. They will all be going in the brooder together. Mine are due to hatch on Tuesday

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Quote:

I agree, incubating is not hard the hard part. Trying to stop is. You really don't need a book. You can find out everything you need to know on the site. Good luck and have some fun with it.

 

[Kristy in WA]

I can't believe I've only known about this site for a couple of weeks and I am already so obsessed with this whole process. Who would have known?? I feel like the 16 chickens I'm getting and the 15 eggs I"ll try to hatch won't be enough chickens, yet in reality, it's waaay toooo many!!! I think I'll get some books from the library at least, so I can look at the pictures. I love seeing all these pictures of chicks hatching. Is there somewhere on this site that has chicks hatching 101, and lays it all out in a simple format. I love all the threads, but often they focus on just one aspect. I need to read an overview on hatching chicks. Kristy