Hello. My name is Jessica. I'm new to BYC. I'm a stay at home/working mom. I have 4 children, a cat and a French Mastiff. And obviously a wonderful husband! I'm really excited to be a member of BYC. I had chickens previously, in Nacogdoches,Texas. We had to move closer to my mother and father in 2013, so we had to give our (chicken)babies up. I cried for days. They were barely 10 weeks old. For the past two years I've dreamed of the chance to have chickens again. Recently we moved to Galveston, Texas and to my surprise I'm allowed to have 12 chickens. So my hubby helped me make a homemade incubator. We set it up and watched it for 4 days. With all of the bad reports on homemade styrofoam incubators I was shocked that ours held the humidity and temperature so well. We currently have 10 RIR eggs in the bator and are on day 16! I'm so excited! I would love any and all advice, on incubating please.
Hello there and welcome to BYC! Sorry you had to give up your babies. I am sure that was pretty hard. Good luck with the hatch! On lock down day, get your humidity up to 65% or 70% and open all vents wide open. If you have to, put some damp sponges inside the incubator to get the humidity up. Wet them down, don't completely wring them out, but don't put them in there too dry either. Day 21 is only an average hatch date so don't panic if day 21 comes and goes. Sometimes they can hatch days later if your temp was a bit low. When they pip, (break through the shell to breath) they can sit like this for 24+ hours, so don't think you need to break them out of the shell. They are busy absorbing the last of the yolk and detaching from the inside of the egg. And NEVER open the lid of the incubator when there is pipping! You can dry the chicks right up and they can stick to the inside of the shell and die. After they are all hatched and dry, you can remove them. If there are still eggs yet to pip and you know they are viable, you can quickly remove the dry chicks and continue the incubation process. Here is a nice article from our learning center on hatching eggs...https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101 Good luck and I hope you get a good hatch!!
Hi there and Welcome to BYC! Sorry you had to give up your babies! I never incubate (broody hens are better, in my opinion) but TwoCrows has given you good advice. Good luck with the hatch!
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. My wife and I were both raised in the great state of Texas, and my daughter's name is also Jessica. We homeschooled our children, and Jessica is following in our footsteps, homeschooling our granddaughter (pictured in my avatar). Raising chickens is a wonderful experience for children. Our granddaughter loves our chickens. I'm glad your homemade incubator seems to be working so well. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your hatch.
Thank you! Homeschooling will be our next big adventure. We're currently researching for a good curriculum. Hopefully we'll be ready at the beginning of next year. I'm not impressed with the public schools over testing. There's no time to teach the children anything but how to rake a test.
You're welcome. And I know where you're coming from (my entire family are educators with my wife, son, and son-in-law all public school teachers). )
