At the end of the Easter hatch along, I was pretty discouraged. I set 14 eggs for the HAL that I got from breeder because I wanted Wheaten Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas. That didn't work out and all of the chicks died either as they pipped or in the shell. I think this was because I got bad directions on how to incubate. The instructions I got said to put in one plug on day 18 (lockdown) and the other on the first pip. THAT WAS BAD ADVICE!!!
So I gathered some eggs from my backyard. They are barnyard mix because I currently have my chickens mixed together. I put them in the incubator on the Tuesday after Easter. I had to know if it was a bad incubator, bad advice, or something else all together. Using free eggs to test it out seemed like a better idea than buying eggs from the breeder again until I could work out the kinks in my system. I used the dry incubation instructions that I used before but this time I just set the plugs aside because I think they were the problem. The only other change I made was the direction of the turner. The previous time, I had the turner positioned front to back in the windows and this time I turned it right to left. This may seem insignificant but it seemed to align with the warming element on the lid of the incubator this way.
I put the eggs in lockdown last night. 8 (3 blue eggs and 5 brown eggs) of the 9 eggs I set developed. This morning, I woke up to one pip and in the hour that followed I got 5 more. 6 of the 8 have pipped so far. They aren't even due to hatch til Tuesday but I am very encouraged. This is more pips with fewer eggs than I got with the purchased eggs.
I am hoping to report some hatches soon! I hope you will hope with me and I will let you all know how it goes...
Good luck!
