Our chick is here!! Yay!!--Now what do we do :) ?

[joolz1226]

We finally have one hatched chick from our first try at incubation. We also put more eggs in the incubator at different times, so I'm sure there will be more to come. Anyway, "Omelet" is newly hatched today. What do we do now? Can we take him out of the incubator? We have followed the advice and put a little bowl of water in the incubator with some marbles so he doesn't drown.

 

[gabrielle1976]

He should be there till he is dry, do you have a brooder set up for him? If none of the other eggs have any pips or zipps and you set eggs on diffrent dates you can take him out after he is all fluffy and put him in a brooderwith a clean feather duster or small stuffie to keep him company till someone else hatches , he needs to be about 95 deggrees with papertowels or such as bedding with a small flatish dish with water and food sprinkled over the papertowel so he pecks at it.

 

[SadieBug]

Baby chicks are so much fun! And congratulations on successfully hatching with an incubator! Little Omelet will want some crumbles and a heating lamp once he's dried off and able to move fairly well. I usually keep my chicks in a horse/large stock water trough that's about 3-4 ft deep, which keeps them in and other instigators out. I use either shavings or some hay depending on what's available, and have the bowl of marble water(or a specially made chick water trough) and a chick feeder with starter/grower chick feed. You can get either a red tinted or non tinted(I'm sure you can find other colors) heat bulb and a mountable lamp that you can place on the side. Once Omelet is settled, he will either be content with your setup and chirp quietly every so often, or be unhappy, and cheep cheep cheep you insane. If the heat lamp is too close, he'll be hot and get as far away from it as possible, and if it is too far away, he will chirp loudly and huddle as close to it as possible. Listen to him. If he sounds content(i.e. not freaking out), don't worry.
With every new chick, let them take their time to get their bearing. Some will say leave them in the incubator the first 24h, but every time I do that, they get whiny. Just play it by ear. If you don't think they're ready to move into their chicky play pen, then don't.
If you're putting them under a broody hen or one with some chicks, be careful. Some hens kill strange chicks right away, and some take in every orphan.
Good luck, and listen to your babies. They'll tell you if they're not happy!