Egg Incubator

I had the flu or something that knocked me totally on my butt for about two weeks. I've been playing catch-up (frighteningly behind on seed starting, garden prep, and transplanting!). I'm still not 100% but I'm good enough.

Last month, in April, I received some hatching eggs I'd ordered. I ordered 20 and they sent 24, probably in case of cracked eggs or duds. In fact, one egg was cracked slightly despite the eggs being VERY well packed in sawdust, egg cartons, and then newspaper.


I have a little incubator made out of styrofoam like one of those inexpensive coolers. When we got it, I got the egg turner, too, because I KNOW I'll forget whether or not I turned the eggs, or have a couple of evenings in a row when I'm not home due to bee club meetings or something like that.


The egg turner is six rails with soft plastic "cups" that look like upside-down tables. They rock ever so slowly from one side to the other, about four times a day. This mimics the hen turning the eggs in the nest so that the chick develops well inside the egg.


The incubator came with a hygrometer, which measures the humidity. I didn't realize until I took this photo how filthy my little hygrometer is. It came with the incubator. If the humidity is in the shaded area, everything is good. When the humidity drops, I pour a little bit of water in the bottom of the incubator (it has a plastic liner with a little trough where I can put the water - impossible to photograph though, as it's all white).


The incubator also came with a thermometer. Eggs like to stay at about 99.5F and this thermometer has a nice extra-wide marking at 99.5. The thermometer rests on a bent piece of metal so that it's elevated about egg-height off the floor of the incubator.


Here are the eggs after being placed in the incubator, in the egg turner, big end up. The big end goes up because that's where the air pocket is. The chick's head will develop in the big end. The eggs have a "B" on them that's not really visible in the small picture but they show up if you click to view the large picture. Anyway, the "B" is where the seller marked them. They are Buckeye chicken eggs and he raises several types of chickens.


This is the incubator when it's closed. It has a couple of little windows to look into. It has two red plastic air vent plugs. In the photo, one is still in place and one has been removed. You can see the ventilation hole near where the power cord comes out of the top of the incubator. When the eggs start hatching, you increase the humidity and remove the second plug.

Unfortunately, not ONE of my eggs hatched! I candled them (get in a dark room and hold a flashlight to the back of the egg) and most of them never even started developing. A few developed but none of them hatched. I used this incubator successfully last spring, so I figure it's bad eggs.


I've been told that if the Post Office X-rays eggs, most of them won't develop at all, as if they hadn't been fertilized. Those that do develop will probably develop poorly. So it's possible my eggs were X-rayed.

It's also possible the seller has a rooster with fertility problems, and/or he sent me eggs that were very old or had gotten chilled. Because he was so careful with the packaging, though, I tend to think X-rays might be the problem.

So, I've given up on Buckeye chickens (again) and I'm saving some of my own Speckled Sussex eggs to hatch out. I'm down to five hens, thanks to foxes and hawks. I have three roosters so I need to butcher a couple but, well, it's so easy to just put that off.