Rocky beginnings...

[calebolson23]

I decided a month ago that I'd start raising some chickens; mostly for the education and the opportunity to involve my children with the husbandry/food chain process. We ordered some barnevelder eggs from a local virginia farm, started incubating and coop building; it's been a ton of fun! Unfortunately, that was on June 4th; now we have a 90% complete coop, a brooder and a dozen unhatched eggs. The egg situation is frustrating; we monitored the temp (99.5), humidity (50-60) and used an automatic egg turner. Now it's day 24, and there has been zero activity. Any suggestions? When do I toss the eggs out and try again? And when we do try again, what should we do differently? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[happyhens1972]

Have you candled the eggs at any point to see what's happening?

 

[calebolson23]

No, other than occasionally adding water, we haven't opened the incubator and only handled the eggs to remove them from the turner and place them on the grate.

 

[happyhens1972]

I would recommend a candling before you throw them out. Do a google search to find pictures of what you are looking for and then take a bright torch, go into a dark room and take a look at what you have before you consign them to the bin.

 

[calebolson23]

Thanks; I'll give it a try!