the first time ;)

[megangreen]

hello everyone! hopefully i am going to be getting a incubator and hatch some chicks(fingers crssed!) but i wondered if there was anything that i needed to know before getting started? im not planning to rush into anything so i may start next year or in a few months etc. but it all seems a bit complex so i wondered if anyone could tell me the basics or the dos and donts!

thankyou!

 

[Ridgerunner]

This article may help you.

Texas A&M Incubation site
http://gallus.tamu.edu/library/extpublications/b6092.pdf

I think it is important to note that these are generally guidelines, not absolute do's and don'ts. There are a whole lot of things involved with hatching chicks, some in your control and some not. You can do everything you are aware of absolutely perfectly and still have problems, or do several things "wrong" and still have good hatches. The guidelines are there to help improve your odds of things going right, not to give you guarantees that everything will go perfectly if you follow them nor to guarantee absolute failure if you do a little thing wrong. They just improve your odds.

An example. I can't meet the guidelines for the correct temperature for storing eggs for hatching. I don't have a place that cool in the summer. I just do the best I can, which is in an air conditioned room in the house. That is way too warm according to the guidelines, yet I do OK. I don't store them that long until I have enough to put in the incubator, which helps. Some people in hot climates that don't have air conditioning store eggs in refrigerators for hatching. That's a big no-no, but if the refrigerator is set fairly warm and they keep them in the warmest part of the refrigerator, that is the best they can do. Those folks often do pretty well. But if they keep then in a refrigerator set way cold and keep them in the colder parts, they usually don't do as well.

I think it is very important to know what you should be striving for, but don't obsess if you can't meet it perfectly. Some things are more important than others, but if you just do the best you reasonably can, you will probably do OK.

 

[megangreen]

thankyou!! your responce was muchly apprecieted!