Taking eggs and putting them in an incubator after chickens start laying eggs? My daughter's so excited to try out her incubator, I was going to let her keep 4-6 eggs to give it a shot. We are working on filling up our "30" egg carton in the fridge and I'd like to let her keep a few. I told her once it was full, she could save a 4-6 eggs for a week to try to hatch... but they only started laying about 2-3 weeks ago, and I wanted to make her wait a month or two...
When will the eggs be "big" enough that the chicks will have enough room to grow. (I've done enough research that the first eggs laid will be too small to hatch or grow chicks properly.) but some say wait a long time, others say a few weeks...
When have you had the best success, especially with smaller egg-layers. We haven't had a "store size" egg from our laying hens, but I think they aren't going to get much bigger since they are small chickens besides our RIR.
My daughter is just so antsy to try to hatch them... her dad's going to end up over run with chickens if we aren't careful. He's already complaining about me wanting to build a new and better and separate coop for our easter eggers in abuot 3-4 weeks, so I can transition them outside between 8-12 weeks into their own pen.
We'd have the heat lamp ready for use in about 3-5 weeks, because it's so hot here, I already turn it off and crank up the AC in the room they are staying in the afternoon because it gets too hot for them with the heat lamp on.
So, the timing would work if I made her wait another couple weeks to start collecting them, because in another couple weeks, we should be able to just turn the heat lamp off and just turn the AC on in the afternoon to try to get it below 100 in the room they are in. (It average 80-85 with low AC use, so almost hot enough as it is with out even needing a heat lamp.)
ANYWAYS TL
R version : When can she start incubating eggs from a new hen that recently started laying, to have the best chance of a first hatch.
When will the eggs be "big" enough that the chicks will have enough room to grow. (I've done enough research that the first eggs laid will be too small to hatch or grow chicks properly.) but some say wait a long time, others say a few weeks...
When have you had the best success, especially with smaller egg-layers. We haven't had a "store size" egg from our laying hens, but I think they aren't going to get much bigger since they are small chickens besides our RIR.
My daughter is just so antsy to try to hatch them... her dad's going to end up over run with chickens if we aren't careful. He's already complaining about me wanting to build a new and better and separate coop for our easter eggers in abuot 3-4 weeks, so I can transition them outside between 8-12 weeks into their own pen.
We'd have the heat lamp ready for use in about 3-5 weeks, because it's so hot here, I already turn it off and crank up the AC in the room they are staying in the afternoon because it gets too hot for them with the heat lamp on.
So, the timing would work if I made her wait another couple weeks to start collecting them, because in another couple weeks, we should be able to just turn the heat lamp off and just turn the AC on in the afternoon to try to get it below 100 in the room they are in. (It average 80-85 with low AC use, so almost hot enough as it is with out even needing a heat lamp.)
ANYWAYS TL
R version : When can she start incubating eggs from a new hen that recently started laying, to have the best chance of a first hatch.
