It's Incubator Season
Welcome back to Fluent in Fowl Language. It’s officially incubator season so today’s episode will discuss How to Incubate Eggs properly.
Thinking about hatching chicken eggs at home? It’s not just a project—it’s an adventure! You’ll mix a little science with a lot of patience and a genuine love for nature. Whether you’re a backyard farmer trying something new, a homeschooling parent looking for a hands-on lesson, or someone exploring sustainable living, the journey starts with good prep. In this post, I’ll share everything you need to know to give your eggs the best chance at a successful hatch
To incubate eggs successfully, you’ll need the right tools:
· Surehatch Incubator, automatically handle egg turning and temperature and humidity. Cabinet style incubators make maintaining both a lot simpler than some of the tabletop ones.
· When using a manual incubator, make sure you have a thermometer & hygrometer to monitor the temperature and humidity. We offer a Digital LCD Thermometer/Hygrometer that shows the minimum and maximum readings. This is also a great addition to ANY hatching room so you can see the temperature and humidity reading in the room. Ideally, you want to maintain at least 60 – 90 degrees with a relative humidity of 50% in the room.
· If your incubator does not have automatic turning, you will need to rotate the eggs manually 3-5 times per day.
· Brooder Setup: Make sure you have a space for your new chicks to go. Prepare a space with a heat source, bedding, feed and water. Check out our Happy Chix 100 Chick Electric Brooder kit.
· Egg Candling Equipment, our SureView Egg Candler allows you to candle up to 30 eggs at once! We recommend candling on day 10 (to check for egg fertility) and again on day 18 before putting the eggs into lock down to hatch (inspect for development and cracks).
Select Eggs: Choose clean*, oval shaped, fertile eggs that are free of cracks. Store them at 55-65 degrees Fahreinheit. You can store them up to a week small end down and give them a turn daily. *You do not need to use water to clean them, just wipe or brush them down…if you have a bunch, you can use the Suregrade 750 Egg Washer, this can brush off the large clumps of dirt on up to 750 eggs in 1 hour!
Ladies and gentlemen…start your engines! And by engines I mean, turn your incubator on, make sure it warms up to 100.5 degrees Fahreinheit and has a relative humidity of at least 50-55%. (On day 18 you can bump the humidity up to 60-65%. ) Once your incubator is up and running, you are ready to place your eggs in the incubator aka “setting” the eggs. Remember, not every egg is a fertile egg and very rarely will you have a hatch rate of 100%. Set the eggs in the incubator tray pointy side down. On day 10, candle your eggs and remove the non fertilized eggs, cracked shells or undeveloped eggs. Continue incubating the rest of your eggs until day 18. *try not to open the incubator other than when candling on Day 10. After Day 18, candle the eggs before moving them into the hatcher (or stop or remove the automatic egg turner if you are using a tabletop style incubator). Maintain the temperature of 100.5%, increase humidity to 60-70%. Day 21, baby chicks will start hatching, if you are at Day 21 with none hatched, give the eggs a couple more days. Let the chick hatch on its own. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HELP. Blood vessels that haven’t dried yet may still be attached to the shell and taking the shell off too early can cause potentially fatal bleeding. A chick can take up to 24 hours to hatch (most hatch in about 6). You may hear peeping and chirps of your new chicks, this will encourage the other eggs to hatch. Baby chicks should stay in the incubator until the are fully dry and fluffy. Once all of the chicks have hatched, you can lower the temperature to 95 degrees Fahreinheit. The chicks can stay in the incubator 24 hours after hatching without additional food or water. On Day 23, candle any unhatched eggs to see if they are still alive before discarding them.
Set up your brooder area with bedding, food and water. The brooder area should be big enough that the chicks can get out from under the heater/heat lamp and easily access the food and water. If you notice the chicks huddling together, they are too cool and lower the heater closer to them, if they are laying flat or panting, raise the heater.
Things to keep in mind: When hatching eggs, you will probably end up with some roosters. Check with your town ordinances BEFORE hatching to see if they allow roosters…if not, have a plan for rehoming before you start hatching. If you do decide to keep a rooster, a good rooster to to hen ratio is 1 rooster to 10 chickens. More than that can cause injuries to your hens or overbreeding.
Happy hatching! Remember, there is NEVER a time I don’t want to see baby chick pics!
