My boyfriend and I initially got our incubator to replenish our guinea flock but I decided to fill it with chicken eggs first since I had more chicken eggs than guinea eggs. I did A LOT of reading, we maintain temp between 99 and 101 degrees, 50-60% humidity during the first 18 days. I have an egg turner so that really helped to keep temp and humidity regular (not having to open and close the incubator 3 times a day). On day 18, I stopped turning the eggs and kicked up the humidity to 80%. Yesterday morning we noticed our first pip (diamond shaped crack, first initial crack the chick makes) throughout the day noticed many more. Last night we watched the first chick to pip, hatch from her egg, which took about an hour. I have already named her Pippin, and she's either a barred rock or black australorp. This morning we had 11 out of 17 chicks hatch. I don't see anymore pips yet so that might be it, but for my first time incubating, I'm very pleased with an over 50% hatch rate. I don't think my 'duds' are due to anything to do with the incubator as it could be very likely that those eggs just weren't fertilized but when I candeled them at day 8, they all seems to show nice veins and embryos. Out of all my chicks I have 1 Rhode Island Red, 2 golden laced wyandottes, and the rest are black so they're either barred rocks or australorps, which I'm very pleased about because my australorps are great layers and full of personality!
