Hello. Excuse the mess. I've just been hatching these little cuties in the
incubator. Just give me a minute to pop them out into the brooder box because I
want to give you some hints and tips about how to get the best out of your
incubator to make sure that you can hatch lots of healthy baby chicks.
Eh? Come on cutie. Come on. In you go. Time to go out to the brooder box, eh?. Come on.
You don't have to have an incubator to hatch chicks
you can't hatch them under a broody hen. Which is best? Well I've got a video
about that - you can check it out - They both have their advantages of course.
Of course to hatch them with an incubator you need an incubator
I'll assume you've already bought one of those based on how many eggs you want to
incubate at a time, how automatic you want it to be, and how much you have to spend.
This one is a Black Chick incubator. I've had it for about 12 years
now and it's been very reliable. In fact they're a very good brand. They're made
in Thailand. I don't think they make this particular model anymore - it's a
Top Hatch, and I think they only make the bigger models now I'm not the one that
just does twelve eggs at a time.
Give some thought to where you want to set up
your incubator. Ideally you want it in a room that has a fairly
steady temperature and humidity and is away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.
This room stays pretty cool throughout most of the day except on a
late summers afternoon when the sun comes streaming through the windows
so I have to leave the curtains closed if I'm doing incubation in the summertime.
Make sure your incubator is clean and set it up and make sure it's stable well
in advance of the time when you want to start your eggs incubating.
If you're having fertile eggs shipped to you for incubation then it's a good idea to make
sure that your incubator is in good condition and working order before you
even order the eggs - you want to make sure that it's on, working, the temperature
is stable, and everything is perfect so everything is going to go smoothly
for you throughout the incubation.
My incubator has a tray that just slides in
and a set of rollers that sits on the top. The rollers are the automatic turning device.
They attach to this rotating wheel at the back, and about
once an hour the rotating wheel sends the rollers across the incubator.
As the rollers turn the eggs on top of them get turned.
The humidity is raised by putting some water in this dish which comes with it.
The size of the dish affects the amount by which the room''s existing humidity is
raised. This is a pretty rough and ready way of controlling humidity but I've found
that this dish is about right for our climate throughout the main incubation period.
If you have a hygrometer you can check the humidity of your setup.
You can also gauge the humidity by the change in size of the air bubble in the egg
throughout incubation.
The temperature is controlled by this knob.
Again I've worked out just where it should be set to get the right temperature in the
incubation chamber.
One of the advantages of a forced air incubator like this
is that the air is always moving around the chamber so the temperature is pretty
even but it's still possible to get variations in temperature in different
parts of the chamber. You want it to be between 99 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit
that's 37 to 39 degrees Celsius.
I often hatch eggs that have been shipped
to me by other breeders because that's the easiest way to get different breeds
of chickens in my garden. As usual these ones are well packed.
I mark the eggs to
identify them and also mark which side is which.
Shipped eggs must be rested for a full day or more before being incubated.
And I candle them at the beginning to check the size and shape of the air bubble
which should be tiny if the eggs are fresh and not misplaced or split by
rough handling during shipping and to look for any cracks in the shell or
other problems. You can see the yolk as a pale blob inside the egg but you
shouldn't see much of anything else inside a fertile egg. Then double check
that the incubator is stable at the right temperature before the eggs go in.
Remember these are not just eggs we hope there's a tiny chick embryo
inside so handle them very gently.
When you first put the eggs in the
temperature of the incubator will probably drop a bit because you put
colder eggs into the warm incubator but don't be tempted to change the dial just
let it come slowly back up to its set temperature.
The amount of airflow can be adjusted using these two vents. They must be
completely open during the final couple of days when the chicks are hatching
but in fact I usually leave them fully open throughout the incubation.
The developing chicks need oxygen which they absorb through the egg shell from the
surrounding air so the incubation chamber must have a good supply of fresh air.
Throughout incubation the rollers move from side to side about once an hour
turning the eggs between a quarter and a
half a turn each time and then back again. But as well as the automatic
turning once a day I also move the eggs around the incubator. This evens out any
differences in temperature around the incubation chamber and makes sure that
one egg doesn't sit in a cold spot or a hot spot throughout the whole incubation.
At the same time I give each egg a complete turn on to its other side.
As the embryo grows you can see its development by candling.
this is not strictly necessary
but I find one of the great pleasures of incubating eggs is
watching that baby embryo grow and develop. These eggs are brown eggs and
the darker the shell the harder it is to see much but it helps if you know
what you're looking for. By day five what you can mostly see is actually the eye
of the baby chick and some tiny spiderweb like veins.
By day 16 the air bubble has got bigger and so has the chick
The chick takes up most of the egg by now although not completely - there's
still a bit of room for it to move.
and if you're lucky you'll see it move around while you're candling - that's just
magic to see.
For the last three days you're going to stop the eggs turning, increase the
humidity and check the temperature doesn't get too high. At this stage the
chicks are going to have their own circulation system and they're starting
to produce some heat of their own so I usually do find that I need to adjust
the temperature knob.
The way to stop the eggs turning in this particular
incubator is to remove them from the rollers and take out the rollers
completely and put the eggs back directly on the tray.
The whole rollers come out.
And in the bottom of the tray I always put a little
piece of this drawer liner to give the chicks legs some really good purchase
when they hatch - that helps decrease the incidence of spraddle leg.
This amount of surface area for the water is enough to set the humidity level at the right
amount during the main part of incubation but when I need to increase
the humidity what I actually need to do is not add more volume of water but a
greater surface area. I just use a couple of takeaway containers
and fill them with water
And remember whenever you're adding water once the incubation has started
always use warm water not too hot not too cold.
When we put the eggs back in
I try to set them with the air bubble facing up a little bit because that's
the way the chicks are going to hatch they will first peck into the air bubble
and take a few breaths there before they actually peck around the outside of the
shell and hatch.
We need to make sure that there's plenty of oxygen for the last three days so
I'll double-check that the air vents are both open but we also need to maintain
the humidity at that slightly higher level especially during the time when
the chicks are actually hatching so try to make sure that the door remains
closed throughout the hatching period.
And then we just wait for three days
and hope that they all hatch.
And here they come