Anticipation of Egg Hatching

Waiting for these eggs to hatch is stressing me out! I read a ton of stories where people experienced slightly early hatches and I suppose I expected mine to be the same. All the research I did said that it will take 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch, give or take. I suppose the right thing to do would be to count those days right down to the hour of when you started. This would put me in the second half of day 20 with 2:30pm being the start of day 21. Visually on my calendar today is day 21 so I guess my mind set is ahead of these chickens. I've read that people have had hatches up to day 28 so I am not giving up yet!

There are so many distinct factors in egg hatching. Temperature, humidity and turning are pretty important. On day 18, you need to increase your humidity and stop turning the eggs. This is your last day to candle the eggs before "lock down". Upon my day 18 candling, I saw life in 3 eggs. The 2 darkest colored eggs were extremely difficult to see inside so I am very unsure if they were ever even fertilized in the first place. I have 3 small white-ish eggs. One is definitely not fertilized, one appears to have died in the first week and the Blue Silkie appeared to be full grown with veining and movement. I found it adorable to be able to identify a foot and see it move.

 I am constantly staring at this incubator hoping there will be something to report!

 I drew up this calendar to keep track of everything so I know what to avoid for next time. I think it is so important to document everything. There are definitely several things I would do differently next time I incubate eggs.

 Since increasing humidity, there has been condensation on the glass. I hope this is normal.

 I noticed when I lay a washcloth over the top glass, the temperature increases.

Occasionally the temperature increases about 2 degrees. This can be influenced from a warmer outside temperature OR the very exciting... body temperature from growing chicks!

I am (technically) right in the middle of day 21. In the past few days, I have had to cover the glass to increase the temperature. This evening, I have a 2 degree increase with both windows uncovered. I'd like to stay on the positive side and say that my chickens are making moves to hatch.

 On the top right of my incubator, I keep a water bottle. This keeps the water warm and ready if I need to fill the bowls for humidity.

On the top left, my husband set up a smoke alarm. I wouldn't have thought to put that there but better safe than sorry.

 The main thing that I wish I had done differently is the style of egg turning. I put all the eggs (pointy side down) in this egg carton. I had cut the bottom of the carton to provide better circulation. I used this bent piece of chicken wire to lean the egg carton on one side or the other. I switched it 3 times a day so they would spend the night on the opposite side as the night before.

I now feel that this method may have been too rough. Next time I will just lay the eggs as they are now and rotate each one by hand. I also plan to do it 5 times a day instead of my previous 3.






I encourage any questions, comments or advice.