Day 18 started at noon. I removed the homemade automatic egg tilter, which had been rocking every 2½ hours, put in a grid inside a lasagna tin covers the bottom, added water, put the 6 eggs back and am on lockdown. My calculation say hatching this Sunday.
I regret a decision I made to test the air circulation by not rotating the eggs this time. The largest of the all smallest, least pointed eggs is closest to the hot air in. I put the eggs in a half cardboard egg carton and am wondering if they'd be better off lying flat on the grid allowing the eggs to roll if necessary. Still, it is lockdown already. If they all hatch well and not closest to the air in first then this will be how I'll do it in the future.
The fates are anticipating Sunday's hatching. Deciding to test an auger for drilling fence holes for a run I laid out, removing a heavy drill from under the kitchen counter, it touched the glass front on the oven door and crazed/broke the glass completely. I immediately thought of the eggs in the incubator not 6' from the stove.
My birds are alerting madly right now, looked, nothing unusual. Perhaps a snake but no, they usually ignore the chicken snakes. They kept it up so I checked again and as I walked from under a tree toward the coop a hawk's shadow crossed my path as it left. Then they got calmer.
I should note these eggs are from my only laying hen and she's old. Since her eggs have thick shells and I've never had much success candling, these 6 eggs have not been candled.
