New to Incubating

[Nomadicus]

Hello and Welcome to BYC. Glad to have you here with us in this fun and poultry loving community.

 

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC, and good luck for a successful incubation/hatch.

 

[CurlyChickenGirly]

Welcome to BYC! I’ve never incubated eggs… yet. But I’m glad you are here!

 

[Debbie292d]

Hiya, and welcome to BYC!

My first suggestion is to get at LEAST one hygrometer/thermometer. If you look up Govee on Amazon, they almost always have some on sale. You can get wifi ones or not, but the point is to verify your incubator's settings as they rarely are correct.

Incubating is fun and addictive. My first ones for 2025 are due on Valentine's Day. After that, they'll be hatching every week as I stagger hatch (set new eggs 6 days after the first ones, remove the ones that need to be locked down to a 2nd incubator with just a rubber mat and 70% humidity.)

 

[User690263]

Welcome to BYC! Feel free to make yourself right at home

 

[chrissynemetz]

Hello, and welcome to BYC! It's very nice to meet you!

 

[Jener8or]

Hi! Incubating is a lot of fun! Well the hatching part usually is anyways. I hope the hatching forum and other members give you all the information you need. We are definitely here to help with anything poultry related!

Thanks for joining and welcome to BackYard Chickens!

 

[Tookie]

Hello, welcome to BYC! Nice to meet you.

 

[chickmama29h]

Newbie, first batch in the incubator. This incubator seems to have all the bells and whistles, but I realized when looking through this site that I have been too concerned about humidity and perhaps not concerned enough about airflow. Temp and humidity have been spot on, but today on day 19 I see two eggs that are wriggling and the rest are very still. Is that common? Do they all dance in the shell at this point? If so, I have two live chicks left.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Newbie, first batch in the incubator. This incubator seems to have all the bells and whistles, but I realized when looking through this site that I have been too concerned about humidity and perhaps not concerned enough about airflow. Temp and humidity have been spot on, but today on day 19 I see two eggs that are wriggling and the rest are very still. Is that common? Do they all dance in the shell at this point? If so, I have two live chicks left.

I caution that regardless of how good the incubator is, you can't trust the readings. Sometimes they have to be calibrated. If hatching is imminent, the temperature may have been high (regardless of what it says).
Airflow (oxygen) is only critical after the first week. Sometimes higher carbon dioxide at the onset of incubation is better. At later stages when the embryo are utilizing more oxygen, airflow becomes more critical.