Day One

I set the eggs yesterday at 6:44 pm, so today is the official Day One.

I am trying an experiment with this batch that I have never done before. I am starting the eggs large-side up in egg cartons and, instead of turning the eggs individually three times a day, I am changing the tilt of the entire incubator (carefully!) at least three times a day. This helps a lot, as I have noticed that this incubator loses heat easily and is a little on the slow side to regain temperature.

Right now it's at the perfect 99.5 degrees. Hopefully it will stay consistent, but I will be keeping a hawk eye on the temperatures and everything, which I can do since I work from home.

The new group of eggs we got in the mail only got an 8 hour rest, rather than 24 hours, and, frankly, it's because I cared less about them then I was worried about a staggered hatch. Hopefully it was enough rest, but, as most of them are either bantam eggs or pullet eggs, it wasn't worth putting everything to risk and staggering everything.

So, we have 26 eggs in the incubator (I will get pictures up tomorrow). I have put the smaller eggs together as, if they are bantams, I have had those hatch in only 19 days. I will be watching them carefully.

It might seem funny, but I talk and whistle to the eggs when I do interact with them, so that they will know my voice when they hatch. We've seen that behavior in broody chickens and ducks in the past, and we mimic that. We may be delusional, but I really think that the chicks knew who their 'mama' was when they hatched after I used to sit in with them and read out loud to my kids and we'd sing to them. That group of chickens really thrived and we saw them being encouraged by hearing us while they were hatching.