New here & need help with what to do once my eggs hatch...

[42withington]

Hi All,
I'm new to the website & need a bit of advice with my eggs that are currently incubating. We've kept 6 chickens (5 hens/1 cockerel) for a few years now but have never hatched any chicks until a couple of months ago. We had a broody hen who sat on 7 eggs, 3 were infertile, 2 chicks died & the other 2 were killed by the hen. After this bad experience I decided to buy an incubator & currently have 7 eggs incubating which are due to hatch on 5/6/7 July. I've been doing a lot of reading but nothing I've found seems to answer my questions. They are:

1. My incubator is quite small so once the chicks start to hatch is it okay to take them out & put them in a box as I don't think there is enough room for them to stay in there? If the box is indoors will I still need some kind of heat source i.e. Lamp.

2. We have candled the eggs but some of them are very dark brown so it is difficult to see through them. They don't smell or anything so is it okay to leave them in the incubator until the time passes enough for us to assume that they are infertile?

Any help or advice you can offer on this would be great.

Thanks
Sally

 

[sumi]

Once the chicks have hatched, leave them in the incubator until they are dry and fluffed up before moving them to the brooder. It's very unlikely that they will all hatch at the same time, so you can remove them as they are ready. If you need ideas for brooders have a look here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/homemade-chicken-brooder-designs-pictures

Chicks need to be kept at a temperature of around 95*F for the first week, after which you reduce the heat by around 5*F per week until they are fully feathered.

For more on chick raising and care and have look here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...ks-the-first-60-days-of-raising-baby-chickens

Dark coloured eggs can be very difficult to candle! If you have more than one flashlight try candling from more than one side of the egg at the same time. Lie the egg down on something and position the lights around it. That sometimes works with dark shelled eggs. If you can't anything at all and they don't smell, leave them in the incubator until they hatch (or not). They should be fine.

Best of luck with your hatch!

 

[deejeff442]

i am new also. i posted earlier but no replys yet. anyway i just saw the post and that helps me also thanks. i have 10 in my incubator. kinda lost on candleing. they are dark eggs. i was worried after doing research on unfertile eggs blowing up and cantaminating the whole bunch.i just joined this forum and hope it helps. sorry to the op for stealing some time on your post.

 

[sumi]

i am new also. i posted earlier but no replys yet. anyway i just saw the post and that helps me also thanks. i have 10 in my incubator. kinda lost on candleing. they are dark eggs. i was worried after doing research on unfertile eggs blowing up and cantaminating the whole bunch.i just joined this forum and hope it helps. sorry to the op for stealing some time on your post.

I've hatched lots of eggs and I only had one sort-of explode on me. It didn't break the membrane, just the shell. Thankfully! LOL You will find lots of help and information here if you hang around for awhile and read threads. Especially this one:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/704328/diary-notes-air-cell-detatched-shipped-eggs

There's a lot of great information there and you are of course welcome to come over there and talk to us and ask questions.

Best of luck with your hatch!

 

[42withington]

Thanks Sumi. I was just concerned about leaving them in the incubator as it is so small. The eggs are very tightly packed & after losing the first batch of eggs I don't want anything to happen to these. If you think they'll be ok I will leave them in there until they are dry & then move them into a brooder.