My daughter and I are starting a flock of chickens as her 4-H project. We built a home made incubator and ordered some hatching eggs over Christmas, and ended up with just one chick.
We were having trouble regulating the temperature in our incubator. I have made a few modifications and it now seems to be doing great. Our incubator is an Omaha Steaks foam chest. During modifications I put in a triple pane 8x10 observation window, a CPU fan, and a 40W florescent bulb for heat. It is consistently maintaining a temp between 99 and 101, and I can easily control the humidity with my vents. I bought a broody silky hen who was an egg thief and was sitting on a clutch with staggered due dates and put one of the new eggs in my incubator about 11 or 12 days ago as a test run. At that point it was at about day 6, the egg was developing fine, until today, I expected it to hatch around Wed or Thursday, and I think it quit on me today.
I am a bit obsessive since I lost the first group, I have been candling it quickly when I turn it the first time every morning. Since it was just one egg, I can take a quick look with a small flashlight, and only have it out for a few seconds while I have the incubator open anyway. Why would it quit if my temps have been steady, and the humidity hasn't dropped?
I had just gotten confident in the incubator, and have quit waking up to check the eggs multiple times a night. I bid on more eggs today and won them, now I am concerned, I don't want to keep killing eggs/chicks.
Why would an egg quit so close to hatching, if temps are stable and humidity has been around 50-55%?
Thanks for any advise.
Why would an egg quit so close to hatching, if temps are stable and humidity has been around 50-55%?
Thanks for any advise.
