Anyone here incubate chicken eggs?

jwmorris · Apr 8, 2016

Planning a new project that my little girl might like, to incubate fertile eggs until chicks hatch. I have read quite a bit on the subject but can't say I know what works or not yet.

In any case this is what I am looking at starting out with.

Anyone thats done it care to provide advice?

Thanks.

pmsmechanic · Apr 8, 2016

I can't believe what I'm seeing! All for something you little girl "might" like. Just go online and order a cheap egg incubator, something she can keep in a bedroom or family room if she's really interested. Unless of course you really enjoy McGivering all kinds of interesting stuff together which is what I suspect this "project" is really all about.

joefromga · Apr 8, 2016

As a kid we would take field trips to the science museum and one of the displays was growing eggs. They had pinholes in them on the ends and some sort of lens you could actually look inside them and see the live embryos growing. It was pretty amazing. I now eat lots of chicken so maybe it instilled values in me.

nybirdman · Apr 8, 2016

We hatch pheasant,chukar and bobwhite quail every year.It is interesting for sure.Great for the kids.I donate eggs to the local school so the kids can learn about the process.We do use commercial incubators for our hatching.
Don't know if you are aware;two days before hatch is due;stop rotation.You also need to have a handle on what your humidity is;too much is just as bad as not enough.

stuckmotor · Apr 8, 2016

I built an incubator for a science project when I was in high school and hatched a few batches of chicks. There was a pan of water for humidity, under the tray that held the eggs. As I remember, when the first batch of eggs began to hach there still didn't seem to be enough humidity, causing the membrane of the eggs to dry out before the chicks could escape. Some of them stuck to the membrane and died. My solution was to drip a few drops of water between the chick and the shell. It worked and the rest of the chicks survived. Fortunately we were there to rescue these chicks. I don't remember having to do this on subsequent batches, maybe we figured out what went wrong and corrected it. This happened in the 1960's.

Gary Fowler · Apr 8, 2016

A cheap Styrofoam incubator that automatically moves the eggs back and forth is as cheap as you can get for incubating eggs. They are thermostat controlled so set it and then just keep the water try full is about all you have to do. At around 26 days unplug the egg rotator and wait for each chick to hatch.
You will need to thoroughly clean it after the hatching to get all the egg residue out to avoid a really intense rotten egg smell if you don't. BTDT.

imabass · Apr 8, 2016

I have 34 eggs in my incubator right now. It was a store bought unit with automatic turner. It was probably retail price about $125 but my wife got it at cost for something like $70. We incubated a set last year and everything went well. We lent it to inlaws and they were unsuccessful but we noticed this year that the thermometer they were using was off about 5* too cold.

Basically need a steady 100* temp and 50-60% humidity. If you can achieve that then whatever you build should work. You also need to turn them each day and quit turning them a couple days before scheduled hatch. After about a week, you can candle the eggs with a light and you will be able to determine if they are viable or not.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the matter so I probably missed some important things but incubating eggs is not rocket science. I figure if a chicken can do it then most humans should be capable of hatching eggs.

sea2summit · Apr 8, 2016

I picked up a TSC cheapo incubator for like $15 on sale and I had to tell my 12 yo to stop making chickens until we butcher some out, she's done 4 or 5 sets of eggs now for about 40 total chicks hatched since Christmas time. She tried some of our guinea eggs too but we haven't had success with those.

s219 · Apr 8, 2016

We're doing duck eggs right now. A pretty nice incubator was on sale at TSC for about $35 with electronic heat/humidity controls. Wasn't worth my time to make one from scratch and then fiddle with it to get everything right.

jwmorris · Apr 8, 2016

pmsmechanic said:
I can't believe what I'm seeing! All for something you little girl "might" like. Just go online and order a cheap egg incubator,

Guess we both get to learn something this way and the price happened to be just right, free. My junk pile also won't be any larger when we are done playing around. I understand buying stuff too, although I generally don't post about it in Build It Yourself forums when I do.

pmsmechanic · Apr 8, 2016

jwmorris said:
Guess we both get to learn something this way and the price happened to be just right, free. My junk pile also won't be any larger when we are done playing around. I understand buying stuff too, although I generally don't post about it in Build It Yourself forums when I do.

I'm a builder myself and it's been a struggle to teach myself that my time and money is better spent buying something rather than building. I just tool a look at all the electronics and said that a store bought incubator was cheaper. Glad you were able to have fun!

TSO · Apr 8, 2016

We let our hens do the incubating... But that's a great project for you to do for your girl. My wife (a teacher) brings eggs into school for a hatching project also. Kids love it!

stuckmotor · Apr 8, 2016

An incubator makes an interesting project and is good for mass production. If I only wanted to raise a few chickens, I'd do what TSO does. For my purposes, a nice light weight hen was the best incubator. She also served as a brooder.

TSO · Apr 8, 2016

Yeah exactly, I think one of our broody hens is sitting on about 6 eggs right now... We only allow that when it's time to start rotating some of the flock.

jwmorris · Apr 18, 2016

Day 10, you can clearly see the air cell on the left side and it moving around inside.

valley · Apr 25, 2016

I see, lot of you are doing the chickie thing.

That's a great thing you're doing, good for you children, they'll love it and so will you. I made a bator a while back, like you I've always wanted to. I bought an egg turner, just before they hatch we put them in an egg carton with the bottom cut out, for air. It's wonderful, good for you.

valley · Apr 25, 2016

We just do a few at a time, but the turner can handle quite a bunch.

valley · Apr 25, 2016

You're kids will remember this forever, so will you.

valley · Apr 25, 2016

I know you'll keep good records of the temperature and humidity, that way your hatches will have higher percentages. Good luck to you, making your own is well worth doing.

Richard