What Does An Egg Incubator Do – Of course this process can seem scary and confusing at the same time. I hope to overcome some of the scary and confusing parts of hatching your chicken eggs in an incubator!
You may ask yourself, why are you doing this process? Why don’t we let nature do it for us by using chickens? Great question! And while this is a great option, hatching eggs that are hand-picked in an incubator has many advantages.
What Does An Egg Incubator Do
I just mentioned one! You can choose the eggs you want to drop. This can improve the genetics, eggshell color, and you can hatch the breeds you want to add more! You control the release dates, so time is on your side too. No more guessing when the eggs under your chicken will hatch. You have the ability to prepare and you are well prepared for success that way!
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Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, let’s start from the beginning. First you should do your research and choose the incubator that best suits your needs. I use the Harris Farms Nurture Right 360 Incubator and I love it! Perfect for most backyard chicken breeders. Bonus, it has a built-in candle! Once you have selected your incubator, before placing it, you will need to make sure you have selected the hatching eggs you want to enter the incubator! There are many ways to get eggs to hatch. You can pick them straight from your basket if you have your own rooster and hens, buy them from a reputable local farm, or buy hatching eggs from a local hatchery and have them shipped to your local post office! All of these options are fine, but my biggest tip if it’s your first time is to get them from the inside so the eggs have an easy way out! It goes without saying that you want to choose fresh, good-sized eggs for the best hatchability.
Now to set up your incubator! No matter which incubator you choose, there will be instructions. I have found that the spare bathroom in my house is the best place to hatch. You want to install your incubator out of direct sunlight and in a draft-free area. Chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch. When you collect your eggs to hatch, even if they were laid on different days, it’s okay! The process of hatching or chick development does not begin until that tiny egg enters the incubator.
For hatching chicken eggs, the basic things you will want to remember are these. The temperature should be 99.5 and you will want about 40-55% humidity for the first 18 days and then increase the humidity to about 60% during isolation! More on that to come, but remember those numbers!
Okay, now here’s a little science on incubation and the schedule you’ll want to follow. As I said above, chicken eggs take 21 days or 3 weeks to hatch. Most of your commercial incubators will come with pre-set temperature gauges and you only need to add water to the tank to get the correct humidity for the set time. The best advice for this is to start your incubator 24 hours in advance and fix these things. If you add eggs it will change!! Don’t panic, it will sync back to the settings you had before adding the hatching eggs and you can make minor changes if needed. Another thing that most incubators come with is an automatic egg rocker / turner. Put it in and forget about it until the 18th day, then you should open it, take it out and put the eggs on the floor of the hatch! If the incubator does not have an automatic turner, have an automatic turner and you will need to turn the eggs at least 3 times a day, 5 is ideal. Be sure to mark different parts with a pencil on the egg. I use X and O.
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The reason the eggs need to be turned is the scientific part here. In simple terms, this prevents the growing chick from sticking to the shell inside the egg! We don’t want that! In more detailed terms, the developing chick or embryo should rest on the yolk. You will see (you will see when the candle) that the yolk floats up and sits on top of the egg white inside the shell. If we don’t turn the eggs, the chick that grows inside the egg will get stuck between the yolk and the shell; cause death or no progress!
So, now that we’ve covered all of that! Start the incubator, place those eggs and wait and see!
On day 18, we call this “plugging”. No more turning the eggs, then you raise your humidity and do not dare to open the lid to check on them. If you want to make one last candle, you can at that time and then we wait! You may see the eggs cracking, and sometimes you may even hear the chicks clucking inside the eggs!
On hatch day, day 21, don’t worry if you still don’t see any activity. A chick can take up to 24 hours to hatch! First you have the inner tube; we do not see this outer part of the egg. The internal tap usually takes place around 19-20. That’s why we stop turning again before that and let the chick sit. Here the embryo separates the contents of the egg from the air cells and begins to breathe. Then we have the outer core, the first small crack outside the case. This is always very exciting. Often an external hole is made at the round end of the egg shell and from there the chick will make its way, we call this opening. This is a process that may take a day or more, be patient! Make sure you don’t open the incubator lid at this time, even if you have some that are already fully hatched. If you do this and you have a chick in the middle of hatching, you can trap the chick in the shell vacuum and it can be fatal.
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Hello everyone! My name is Mandi. I am a licensed veterinary nurse who fell in love with the art of slow living so I moved to the country. Most people who know me would say I do anything, but I live slowly these days! I live on over 4 acres in the Midwest. I keep a herd of registered Nubian goats, a breed of chickens and a large garden. I am very passionate about learning and then teaching others what I have learned. I find country life both rewarding and challenging every day, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Thanks for having me! I am here to help you with anything! About: We moved to the country a few years ago and started experimenting with organic farming, raising chickens, logging maple trees, beekeeping, etc. Check out our website for more DIY projects. Learn more about TheGrovestead.
We live on a small hobby farm in the US Midwest and have been raising chickens for 3 years. This year I decided to try hatching our own chicks. I initially looked at branded incubators, but found them to be very expensive (over $200). And after researching many DIY projects online, I found it very difficult. I didn’t see anything easy. The goal of this project was to build an egg incubator as CHEAP AND SIMPLE as possible. I think I succeeded.
I’m sure you can make a better egg incubator than this one. But you won’t be able to build it cheaply or quickly.
Warning, I already had some supplies (most hobby gardeners do) such as light bulbs, a thermometer, and scrap wood. But other than that, my total pocket was $3. This included a styrofoam bait box ($2) and a light bulb socket ($0.97). I also set a goal to do it in less than 30 minutes, which if you don’t count the shooting time of this article, I easily achieved.
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Create a frame to fit the inside dimensions of your Styrofoam box. Mine was 12″ x 10″. Any size wood is fine as long as it is long enough to fit a cup of water inside (2 inches is plenty).
Cut a screen or hardware cloth or any type of porous material that can also support the weight of several eggs. Next, cut the screen over the frame and place it in place.
Cut a 1-inch hole in one end of the Styrofoam box. Make sure it’s not too low or too high — you don’t want the bulb touching the canister lid.
Insert the bulb socket through the hole. It should fit perfectly. The water in your bulb depends
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