Might have an early bird

[lilstar]

I got my eggs from my brother. A combination of a few I snatched out of the nesting boxes, and a few I got from cartons (non refrigerated). I'm wondering how long one of those eggs might have been sitting in that nest before I snatched it, and how much time his hens spent sitting on it! I had someone candle the eggs. (Someone with a good candling torch who also knows what he's doing and what he's looking at, aka not a newbie like me, lol) Good news, all viable and doing well..YAY! And.. well, one of them is measuring about a week ahead of the others...EEEK! I just found this out today. The other eggs are due to hatch about next Sunday. So if this egg is a week ahead.. that means hatching is like.. TOMORROW! Holy crap. I'm so not prepared. I haven't set up a brooder or anything. If its really that far along.. it should be in lock down, right? But, I'll still need to be turning the other eggs. (And I assume I should stop turning that one so the chick can find its' sense of direction?) I'm having trouble keeping humidity up. Its about 45% now, and I just added more water today. I have the little giant bator, is it okay to add more water in the bottom of the bator, outside of the little sections designed for water? I'll buy some sponges fresh sponges tonight too, that should help. If this chick is fixing to hatch.. any day now, I want to give it the best chance but not at the detriment of the other 8. I don't want to risk shrinkwrapping it in order to turn the others. Would love some tips!

Aaand...now I'm off to the raising baby chicks section of this board because I thought I had another week

 

[cmfarm]

I had something like that happend to me my first hatch. I bought some eggs from a neighbor down the street. I put them in the incubator and the next day 1 hatches. I call up the guy to see what happened and he is baffeled. He then calls me back the next day and says his wife told him she was letting one of the chickens sit on some eggs. Like a week later we had another hatch. I didn't now that much about incubating then and never raised the humidity and they did fine.