The day is here, your eggs have arrived!
First, thank you for choosing us to provide you with quality fertile eggs! Now what?
1. Unpacking the eggs – carefully unpack the eggs remove all wrapping. If there are cracked or broken eggs, discard. No matter how good we pack, this could happen, unfortunately.
2. Put them big end up and pointy egg down in an egg carton and let them rest for 12-24 hrs. This is for several reasons. They need to temperature acclimate. We recommend storing them in a 60-65 degree area. The air sac can detach when shipped. Now is a good time to warm up the incubator and get it stabilized. 100.5F/38.0C and 35% humidity are your starting targets. We use a 50/50 mix of original Listerine and water as a cleaning/disinfecting spray to clean the eggs.
3. We suggest after that resting time to put them in the incubator, again, pointy side down. This is day 0, not day 1. Remember to turn the eggs 3-5 times a day. We don’t recommend candling* the eggs till day 7-8. The first week is critical for development and candling can compromise growth and development.
4. By day 18, the embryo has developed into a chick and will take up most of the space in the egg. The chick is preparing to hatch. Now we start the lock-down phase. After these steps, avoid the urge to open the incubator.
Stop egg-turning at day 18 with the larger end of the egg facing up. At this point, the chick will position itself for hatching inside the egg.
Maintain a temperature of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit but increase humidity to 70-75 percent.
Chicks will typically hatch at day 21. If the fertilized eggs were cooled prior to incubation, it might take a little longer. If there are still unhatched eggs at day 21, don’t worry. It is possible that timing or temperature went slightly awry, so give the eggs until Day 23. Candle any unhatched eggs to see if they are still alive before discarding them.
Let the chick hatch on its own. Do not attempt to help. Blood vessels that haven’t dried up yet may still attach the shell to the chick, and prematurely pulling of the shell can cause excessive, potentially fatal, bleeding. A chick can take up to 24 hours to completely hatch, although 4-8 hours is more common.
The peeping of the new baby chicks will encourage unhatched eggs to also start hatching. When the chicks have all hatched, the incubator temperature can be lowered to 95o Fahrenheit. Once the chicks have dried, they can be moved into the brooder, which should already be up and running with a temperature of 90-95o Fahrenheit. Food and water should be in place as well. Remember to quickly dip the chicks beak in the water when placing them in your brooder. We also recommend using Sav-a-chick electrolytes for their water the first few days. It really helps get them off to a good healthy start. Please contact us if you have any questions. We’re here to help.
*Candling Eggs
In a dark room, shine the light through the top of the shell. If the inside of the egg is clear – that is, free from visible structures or dark areas, or if a ring of red is visible within the egg- the egg is infertile or the embryo died very early. Remove this egg from the incubator. If you can see blood vessels within the egg, there is a live embryo inside. Blood vessels in chicken eggs can normally be seen within 7 to 10 days of starting incubation. If you notice broken or leaking eggs, remove them from the incubator as they are not likely to be viable and may contaminate the incubator. After candling, return eggs to the incubator you can check a second time at 14-18 days. By 18 days of incubation, the embryo takes up most of the egg and appears as a dark area within the egg. You can sometimes see movement inside the egg.