Well the hatch is over. Out of 24 total, 12 Black Copper Marans(9 chicks), & 12 Ameracunas(11 chicks) 21 new additions.
Very successful hatch, especially for the first time and with a home made incubator.
THANKS to all that had very helpful answers to my many questions.
This all started because some of my earliest memories(I'm now 55) at the age of 4 was my mother and me building an incubator out of a cardboard box, light bulb and Jesus thermometer-placing 6 eggs and going thru the hatch.
I wanted my 5 year old grand daughter to live the same experience so that's what we just did.
We made some mistakes along the way but I guess none to major. We had to help seveeral Marans thru the hatch, they probably would have been ok but several pipped and after 10 hrs we cracked some shell away to help them hatch. Last night we had two left that had pipped bu not hatched so we put a damp paper towel around them and left them for the night, this morning both were chirping and runnin around the incubator.
Again, many thanks to all that guided us thru this process, we'll now move to the Raising Chicks Board.
Very successful hatch, especially for the first time and with a home made incubator.
THANKS to all that had very helpful answers to my many questions.
This all started because some of my earliest memories(I'm now 55) at the age of 4 was my mother and me building an incubator out of a cardboard box, light bulb and Jesus thermometer-placing 6 eggs and going thru the hatch.
I wanted my 5 year old grand daughter to live the same experience so that's what we just did.
We made some mistakes along the way but I guess none to major. We had to help seveeral Marans thru the hatch, they probably would have been ok but several pipped and after 10 hrs we cracked some shell away to help them hatch. Last night we had two left that had pipped bu not hatched so we put a damp paper towel around them and left them for the night, this morning both were chirping and runnin around the incubator.
Again, many thanks to all that guided us thru this process, we'll now move to the Raising Chicks Board.