New here and very new to incubating and hatching eggs

[Nsfarms4]

Hello all I have been raisng chickens for a few years now. My husband bought me a incubator for valintines day. I placed my first 18 hopefully fertlized eggs in it on Feb 28. Lockdown day should be March 18th if I did my math right. Candeling has been a difficult event to say the least I just am not getting it. Am I supposed to candel them after day five of being in the incubator? Once I put them in there I haven't opened the incubator. I have a automatic egg turner, so I don't have to turn them every four hours. So I am now waiting and watching to see if I get Chickeys. Any advice would be loved!

 

[mrchicks]

Welcome to BYC!

You can candle at around a week to check for development, then candle again before "lockdown", Try to limit how long you have an egg out of the incubator, and how many times you open it. You don't want the temp and humidity to have any large changes from the cover being opened.

And have fun!

 

[Joshua G]

Welcome to BYC!

You can candle at around a week to check for development, then candle again before "lockdown", Try to limit how long you have an egg out of the incubator, and how many times you open it. You don't want the temp and humidity to have any large changes from the cover being opened.

And have fun!

X2 And welcome to BYC!