This is my first time hatching chicken eggs so I guess it is
normal to be feeling too excited and at times a little bit nervous on how my 43
eggs will turn out. They will hatch in
day 21 which is 2 days from now. I already
start talking to the eggs giving them some ‘encouragement’. Hopefully they can hear me as their mother
hen. I’ve removed the turning
trays. In nature, a hen will switch into
her zombie mode where she would not move at all in preparation for
hatching. Isn’t that amazing?
I was so tempted to candle them again but I would just be
putting a lot of stress on the health of the chicks inside the egg if I keep
taking them out of the incubator. So I left them alone. I’m
supposed to increase the humidity of the incubator to 60 to 70% during the last
3 days but it only goes up to 58% so I’m a little worried. I’ve filled up the bottom channels with lots
of warm water already and I’ve even placed a damp cloth just underneath the
hatching tray in an attempt to increase the humidity. But it still doesn’t go up to at least 60%. This is a low-cost incubator so there is no automatic humidity control. There's nothing I can do at this point but hope for the best turn out.
At day 19, here’s what the chick is supposed to look like
inside the egg. I took this photo from Gail
Damerow’s book titled “Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks”.
This site Final Stages - Pipping to Hatching gives more info on how long it takes the chicks to hatch once they started to internally pip. Apparently it can last from an hour to 24 hours. So for my eggs, it will start tomorrow.
Meanwhile, below is the chicken I want to have some chicks
because she lays a greenish egg. I hope one of her eggs will hatch. Isn’t she beautiful?
She can be loud for no reason though. Here's one of her videos doing the
pok-pok-pok-p GAWK sound. Once she starts, everyone else seem to follow her singing.
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