Humidity controlĪ good incubator will be able to provide a good humidity inside. 25 degrees Celsius in the room with the incubator. We advise keeping a steady temperature of approx. You will be opening the incubator during routine controls of the eggs, so it is really important the eggs don’t get a temperature shock in the process – such a shock might kill the fetuses. Temperature in the room where the incubator is placed is crucial here, as it heavily influences the temperature in the incubator. A good incubator will set its alarm off if the temperature within drops below or rises above a certain threshold. The optimal temperature for hatching chicks is 37.5 degrees Celsius. One that we recommend is the Brinsea Mini II Incubator. Temperature controlĪ good incubator will be able to keep a steady temperature within. It is therefore a good practice to mark all eggs with a non-toxic marker just to be sure that every egg is being turned every time you visit them. If the incubator does not have the Auto-turn option, you will need to turn the eggs manually. A broody hen naturally turns all the eggs she is sitting on as she moves around the nest, so the turning simulates what naturally happens when a hen takes care after eggs. Every egg during the incubation time needs to be turned every 90 minutes in order for the embryo to be positioned perfectly in the egg. Auto-turn saves you a lot of time and effort. Some incubators, such as the Brinsea Mini II Incubator have an Auto-turn mechanism built-in. Incubator TurningĬhoose your incubator carefully. When the egg in the incubator is not losing weight it usually means it is not developing. It will lose about 10-15% of its original weight over time. A developing egg will gradually lose weight in its 21 days of incubation. This includes numbering the eggs and keeping a daily record of each eggs weight. It is a really good idea to keep a diary of hatching.

If there are any toxins or bacteria on the eggshells, that might endanger the embryos. Eggs are porous and the embryos get oxygen and water through their eggshells. Once you have the eggs, it is a good practice to wash them with an egg disinfectant. Any defect of the eggshell might result in the chick having difficulty in hatching, being deformed, or not developing at all. The eggs should not have any deformations or bear any other visible defects. A breeder can never give you a 100% guarantee that the egg is fertilized, but an experienced one can be quite confident they are. Eggs of some breeds are quite expensive, so every egg that will not hatch costs you money.

Eggsįirst of all, you need to be as sure as it is reasonably possible that the eggs are fertilized, so getting them from a good breeder / farmer is crucial. In many breeds, cockerels do not tolerate each other and they will fight vigorously unless they are completely separated. Everybody wants hens and hardly anyone needs cockerels, so there is a question of what to do with the latter. Among those which will hatch, approximately 50% will be cockerels and 50% will be hens. It is a safe estimate that 25-50% of eggs will not hatch due to either not being fertilized or due to some mishaps during incubation.

Long Term Planīefore the hatching starts, you will need to have a plan in place as to what you are going to do with the chickens once they hatch. Here’s our step-by-step guide to hatching chicks: 1. The most reliable way to incubate your fertilised eggs and maximise the chance that they will hatch into healthy chicks is to use an artificial incubator. The incubation period for chicken eggs is usually 21 days. There is nothing better than seeing your tiny chicks grow up in the knowledge that they are getting the best possible life from start to finish. Hatching and rearing your own chicks from eggs is an incredibly exciting and rewarding process. However, traditionally the most popular time to breed your own chickens is in the spring. As long as your chickens are laying and there’s a cockerel in your flock, you can hatch and incubate chicks all year round.

Humidity of incubator for chicken eggs