Moon’s first time incubating eggs, and also Hatch-Along!

Okay. I may have too much hope on this chinese’s cheap, bought-on-sale, incubator, but I want to document this journey anyway. It seems every time I don't write everything down disaster happens and I am not up to losing another chick, I’ve lost too many now, my heart 💔


I just set 11 more eggs yesterday, and 19 eggs yester-yesterday's I think? Both around 8-10 pm?
And my memory is already slipping free. Because of my goldfish grade brain, I’ve decided to start a thread for my clutch of 30 eggs in my 30 eggs capacity Wonegg incubator, bought for 34€. Mainly because if I don't document it down in some memorable site, I’ll straight up forgor what day it is in incubation timeline, what to do(the thought remind me of more important memories) and the core of it is real humans comment on them. I may need names, I don't know yet, lol


Enough rambling. Today is day 3 I think.
19 eggs set on 29th of April. An egg was laid on the 27th, stored improperly indoor but still viable I think as it was still early. Was in 23°C and 45% humidity, in an egg carton with 28th eggs. A few eggs were from the 28th and most were from the 29th. I didn’t have enough for a full clutch because I had just sold a bunch of eggs, so day 30th I put in 11 eggs laid that day, so slight stagger hatching but shouldn't matter too much?


I was in a rush to put in the rest of the 30th eggs in so I forgot to mark some eggs I think but on the 4th-5th I’ll check for fertility and mark them then. I circle the air sack and wrote date, though I heard it didn’t matter much. But still I like keeping tracks.


A few eggs are too long, a few wonky, a few too round but none is too deformed? An egg has an abnormally thick bloom(it’s almost all white) plenty of eggs are too small, a few too big, a few too dirty, but because this is my first hatch I wanted to experiment so I’ve set them all. I already steeled myself for heart break though, it’s inevitable I lose a few.

I’ve fed my hens an all layer feed diet before ordering the incubator, so that I get high quality eggs, but the incubator missed the delivery date by 10-20 days so before that, I’ve ran out quite a bit of the feed reserve and start feeding them kitchen scraps with layer feed. The eggs from that were wonky and small for some reason, but they laid more, and the chickens unfortunately liked eating the scraps more than the feed. Then the incubator arrived, right in the middle of me giving them that odd diet. Next batch I’ll do better but since I don't want to wait anymore it is late into the season already, I’ve set the eggs from that batch so we’ll see how many hatch...


Temp is stable-ish 37°C-38°C. I tried keeping humidity on the 50% but sometimes I accidentally made it spike to 60% or let it drop to 35-40%, it is not easy to maintain humidity in this wind-based incubator but I will try to keep it 50% for the entire duration(yes, I may do dry hatching)
Ambient room temp is 20°C-30°C, humidity is 40-60%.
 

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I've decided to not count the day I set the eggs so to me it's now day 3 for the oldest eggs and day 2 for the younger eggs.
Stable 38°C temp, stable 50% humidity. Room temp is 22-25°C, humidity is also ~50%.

I've decided the first candling day will be the 5th of this month, so 3 more days. Just in case I misID younger eggs but I do want to remove infertile eggs. I've had some experience candling now so just as long as memory doesn't slip me, I know what it look like.

If there's too many infertile eggs, I will also swap a few opened spots for new eggs. I think I can manage stagger hatching, it's just 4-6 days and as long as I monitor temp and humidity with hawk eyes, it's possible...in this weather anyway.

I want to hatch as many chicks as possible in this optimal weather before up to 40°C weather hit, so that chicks can be raise sooner outdoor to acclimate. That is unless the breeder's swap occurs this month(last month it was closed due to foot and mouth threat) which we would buy pullets instead and not do another batch. I wanted to take opportunity to use the warm weather and save electricity to raise enough chickens to turn a profit. Aiming for ~30 new pullets for next year. We fenced in an area so it’s only looking for buyers for cockerels now but I think in my asian community, free range cock meat have a demand so I have no worries.
 
Day5/Day4/Day1 at this point? I did candle and remove infertile+replace a few eggs last saturday night so now there are only 28 eggs:
3 eggs infertile candled day 3-4, 2 I think have blood ring. Yes it’s too early to exactly tell but these were from a breed I didn’t want anyway and one was slightly cracked, so using example from the other 20+ eggs, I trusted those were blood rings. It is a little early for candling but 3 eggs were clear and the rest has veins so while some were only on day 3, I removed them anyway.

So out of 5 eggs I removed, I put back 3 new eggs. There’s one white egg that is found cracked when candled but it was from a breed I want so I am leaving it in but day 11, next candling day, if it’s bad then, I’ll remove it.

The 5 eggs removed were: 3 white eggs and 2 yellow eggs, the yellow eggs were oblong, the white a bit small. Unsure if the oblong shape is why the yellow eggs quit early but I think it could be. Maybe because the leghorns were light and small, the rooster struggled to breed them so 3 white eggs were infertile. I don't think the egg size mattered.

Not adding eggs anymore so now hopefully none quit next.
Candled on 3rd of May, next candling date: next Saturday or Sunday.
 

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Today is day 6/day 5/day 2

Room temp dipped to ~20°C or so due to rain, with outdoor temp being 10° at coldest. The incubator will just have to work harder, so temp may not be stable.

This morning, thermo temp was 36°C humidity was 49%. The incubator monitor was 38°C, 49%. Was a bit concerned but okay I was in a rush to go to work. Came home temp still 36°C but the humidity was 39% even though it was wet outdoor. Okay panicked a little, put in a bit too much water? Humidity is 59% right now but it will go away. I hope. Somehow that helped the temp too so now temp is reading 37-38°C :|

Checked the dirty white egg that was cracked and saw movement, more veins and expanding air sack so that’s good! Unfortunately I shake it a little trying to gauge its condition before keeping it still and seeing movement. The embryo was loose and I wanted to see if the yolk is moving or not. Knocked on me head on that, for sure, but hopefully it didn’t kill the embryo for real.
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Okay not yet stabilized but humidity is going down. Picture featuring “the dirty white egg” as I’ve called it. It is unique in that it’s clearly just so dirty lol, and it have thin spots, maybe cracks, for some reason.
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Candled a few eggs just because I was curious. I don't think it would kill them. I just wanted to see them moving around in there!
Very happy all I checked have movements :)
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Eggs added 3rd of May still haven’t had anything duh, but I just wanted to see. One has more orange yolk than the other even though both are the same age, same color 🤔
Well, still only day 2 for them so I best stop touching them haha.
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