- Aug 26, 2009
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I played around with incubating some lizard eggs and a couple of gecko eggs in the past but this was my first attempt at incubating and hatching chicken eggs myself. I've witnessed other people hatching their chicken eggs so I wasn't completely clueless and I haunted this forum for a good 2-3 weeks before my own attempt.
INCUBATOR
My incubator was a still air styrofoam box. I could have added a fan (which I will next time) but was lazy and couldn't find a spare adapter at the time. The complete unit currently consists of box, dimmer switch, hot water heater thermostat, lamp kit with 110watt light bulb, hardware cloth raised platform, water dish under hardware cloth, tin foil here and there for various reasons, tape, 3 thermometers (one I modified into a fake egg) and if I'm forgetting something I'll just edit this later. Below is a pic of my incubator up and running with eggs.
Assembly of my incubator took a good 30 minutes which was mainly me twisting and bending the hardware cloth the way I wanted. The other aspects didn't take very long at all. Mounting the dimmer switch took all of 3 mins and placing the thermostat took a good 5 mins. After it was built I got it running and spent the next week tweaking it until it was as perfect as I could get it. The temps according to my egg thermometer were usually 98 (low) to 100. I got the temp as tight as possible and saw 99.5-9 consistently (with the egg in the middle of the bator) and figured I was ready to try out some eggs. * As a side note-the humidity in my house is consistently 45-50 so I didn't worry with the humidity.
EGGS
I searched my area for an organic health food store. We only have 2 in my area. When I arrived at the store I almost thought they didn't have any eggs but it turned out they only had one type of egg from one supplier. I was delighted that the box had fertile written right on it. The eggs cost around $3.25. I took them home and let them sit for several hours so they could warm up. Before placing them in the incubator I put an X on one side and an O on the other to use as turning markers. This was when I got the bright idea to add one of my own eggs from a cuckoo maran hen and my white leghorn rooster.
The half of the bator near the light ran a bit hot (102-3 air temp) and the corners on the other side ran around 98-99. So I had the eggs clustered around the middle. I turned the eggs 3 times a day. I candled at day 8 and discovered 4 of the store eggs were either infertile or failed to develop. My cuckoo horn egg was also developing. The ones that were definitely fertile I marked with a line on the X side. I had a couple of iffy ones but they ended up fertile. One egg stopped developing sometime after day 14. One stopped developing around day 16 (I'm guessing based on embryo size). So out of 12 eggs I'm down to 6. With my cuckoo horn the total is 7. I go on lockdown with 7 eggs.
HATCHING
This last Sunday the first egg dent appeared. So I let it be and waited and waited. Anyway, this is the result.
These guys just came out today. I had to remove the older chicks because they were picking on my cuckoo horn that was laying around exhausted still half in his bloody shell. I think he was getting way too big for his egg.
Every chick has a different look to it. I have a yellow down chick with a tiny black spot on its back, a yellow- orange chick, a light yellow (almost white) with big black spots chick, a pretty black chick with a red/brown face, and one wet goopy chick who is dark with some white tips on his wings but I can't tell the colors. My cuckoo horn is yellow with some speckles (he is also still wet so can't make out his pattern.
There is still one egg left in the incubator and I'm waiting to see if it hatches. **edit-The lone egg never hatched and isn't making noise so I'm assuming it is dead in shell.
INCUBATOR
My incubator was a still air styrofoam box. I could have added a fan (which I will next time) but was lazy and couldn't find a spare adapter at the time. The complete unit currently consists of box, dimmer switch, hot water heater thermostat, lamp kit with 110watt light bulb, hardware cloth raised platform, water dish under hardware cloth, tin foil here and there for various reasons, tape, 3 thermometers (one I modified into a fake egg) and if I'm forgetting something I'll just edit this later. Below is a pic of my incubator up and running with eggs.
Assembly of my incubator took a good 30 minutes which was mainly me twisting and bending the hardware cloth the way I wanted. The other aspects didn't take very long at all. Mounting the dimmer switch took all of 3 mins and placing the thermostat took a good 5 mins. After it was built I got it running and spent the next week tweaking it until it was as perfect as I could get it. The temps according to my egg thermometer were usually 98 (low) to 100. I got the temp as tight as possible and saw 99.5-9 consistently (with the egg in the middle of the bator) and figured I was ready to try out some eggs. * As a side note-the humidity in my house is consistently 45-50 so I didn't worry with the humidity.
EGGS
I searched my area for an organic health food store. We only have 2 in my area. When I arrived at the store I almost thought they didn't have any eggs but it turned out they only had one type of egg from one supplier. I was delighted that the box had fertile written right on it. The eggs cost around $3.25. I took them home and let them sit for several hours so they could warm up. Before placing them in the incubator I put an X on one side and an O on the other to use as turning markers. This was when I got the bright idea to add one of my own eggs from a cuckoo maran hen and my white leghorn rooster.
The half of the bator near the light ran a bit hot (102-3 air temp) and the corners on the other side ran around 98-99. So I had the eggs clustered around the middle. I turned the eggs 3 times a day. I candled at day 8 and discovered 4 of the store eggs were either infertile or failed to develop. My cuckoo horn egg was also developing. The ones that were definitely fertile I marked with a line on the X side. I had a couple of iffy ones but they ended up fertile. One egg stopped developing sometime after day 14. One stopped developing around day 16 (I'm guessing based on embryo size). So out of 12 eggs I'm down to 6. With my cuckoo horn the total is 7. I go on lockdown with 7 eggs.
HATCHING
This last Sunday the first egg dent appeared. So I let it be and waited and waited. Anyway, this is the result.
These guys just came out today. I had to remove the older chicks because they were picking on my cuckoo horn that was laying around exhausted still half in his bloody shell. I think he was getting way too big for his egg.
Every chick has a different look to it. I have a yellow down chick with a tiny black spot on its back, a yellow- orange chick, a light yellow (almost white) with big black spots chick, a pretty black chick with a red/brown face, and one wet goopy chick who is dark with some white tips on his wings but I can't tell the colors. My cuckoo horn is yellow with some speckles (he is also still wet so can't make out his pattern.
There is still one egg left in the incubator and I'm waiting to see if it hatches. **edit-The lone egg never hatched and isn't making noise so I'm assuming it is dead in shell.
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