Hello! I finally convinced my parents to buy me an incubator- after about 10 years of having ducks, and 2 years of having chickens.
So, today (2-17-12) I will try to hatch my first clutch of eggs! I will be using a Brinsea Mini Advance incubator, and will be attempting to incubate and hatch 6 Bantam Buff Brahma eggs, and 1 Bantam WCB Polish egg.
My chickens have been very irregular layers lately, so I have been collecting hatching eggs for a week. But it has also been around 30-40 degrees F here, and some eggs have either been frozen and cracked (and thrown away), or been exposed to very cold weather, but not frozen, and saved for hatching. They have been saved in a Styrofoam egg tray for a week, with one end tilted on top of a book. Any extremely dirty eggs were not saved, but eggs with small dirt patched were spot-cleaned, and totally clean eggs were saved without being washed.
I am not sure of the fertility of any eggs, so I plan to candle on the 7th and 18th day.
I don't expect a very good hatch rate, because of my extreme newbie-ness, but I certainly hope at least one chickie makes it to the end! I'll keep everyone updated on my attempts at incubating, and I hope someone will be able to answer any questions I come up with! I'm always looking for advice, so your welcome to share!
Other newbies and experienced incubation experts can join this thread as well! Thank you for reading!
So, today (2-17-12) I will try to hatch my first clutch of eggs! I will be using a Brinsea Mini Advance incubator, and will be attempting to incubate and hatch 6 Bantam Buff Brahma eggs, and 1 Bantam WCB Polish egg.
My chickens have been very irregular layers lately, so I have been collecting hatching eggs for a week. But it has also been around 30-40 degrees F here, and some eggs have either been frozen and cracked (and thrown away), or been exposed to very cold weather, but not frozen, and saved for hatching. They have been saved in a Styrofoam egg tray for a week, with one end tilted on top of a book. Any extremely dirty eggs were not saved, but eggs with small dirt patched were spot-cleaned, and totally clean eggs were saved without being washed.
I am not sure of the fertility of any eggs, so I plan to candle on the 7th and 18th day.
I don't expect a very good hatch rate, because of my extreme newbie-ness, but I certainly hope at least one chickie makes it to the end! I'll keep everyone updated on my attempts at incubating, and I hope someone will be able to answer any questions I come up with! I'm always looking for advice, so your welcome to share!
Other newbies and experienced incubation experts can join this thread as well! Thank you for reading!