If you're new to incubating, my advice would be to start with a small incubator and add to your collection later, if you enjoy the experience. How would you and, probably more critically, your children deal with that disappointment?ģ. Know that you will want to hatch more than you think when you first do it. If your eggs have been sent by post, that will potentially drop to around 50%. Get Fertile Eggs From Your Flock’s Rooster If you have a rooster, your eggs will be fertile. If your incubator is forced air, meaning it has a fan in it that is blowing the air around to keep the temperature equalized throughout the incubator, you will want your temperature to be 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit/37.5 degrees Celsius. There are two ways to obtain fertile eggs. This will actually depend on the type of incubator you're using. Remember that not all the eggs you set in any incubator, no matter how good it is and no matter how careful you are, will hatch. Even in the most ideal circumstances only around 80% are likely to be successful. Find Fertile Eggs Before you can get your broody hen to hatch eggs, you will need to identify some fertile eggs. If not, take my short quiz to make sure that hatching is definitely for you - and this one too, to make sure that you can legally keep chickens.Ģ. Incubating chicken eggs is a 21-day process and requires an egg incubator to help control temperature, humidity and egg turning. Have you thought through what to do with them, and in particular with any roosters (cockerels) you might end up with? Whilst hatching is fun and exciting, it will leave you with chickens afterwards. The process involves both the pre-incubation and the incubation sequences. It's unlikely you'll want to go down the 'several thousand' route, but you do need to think carefully about how many eggs you'd like to hatch.ġ. Incubators come in all shapes and sizes, from a few eggs to several thousand. Commercial incubators holding hundreds of eggs may run over 1,800. These incubators may hold 20 to 45 chicken eggs. Expensive: For hobbyists, anything between 100 and 200 is considered a high price range. They usually have automatic egg turners, fans, and temperature and humidity controls. Hatching eggs and seeing the chicks come alive is more than just a cute and fuzzy affair. Step 1: How large should your incubator be? These incubators will hold 12 to 20 chicken eggs. Free Range Incubator Program (Rent an Egg Incubator) for Schools. In this article I'm going to share with you the lessons I learned when choosing my incubators to help you decide which would be the ideal chicken egg incubator for your individual situation. I have four incubators, ranging from the very small to a larger, 24 egg machine. But there are a lot of incubators on the market, each with unique features. When you're hatching chicken eggs there's really only one "must have" item if you don't have a broody hen: a reliable incubator. The Incubator Warehouse is the online leader in reptile and poultry egg incubators and accessories. Backyard chicken keeping has become a huge industry in the past few years and there are a lot of choices out there.
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