Using and incubator or a broody hen, here is everything you need to know about hatching eggs.
Advice on incubation humidity varies wildly from different sources and it seems to be a constant worry to newcomers who are incubating their first few batches of eggs. One of the sources of confusion with humidity comes from incubator manufacturers, since there are a number of recommendations in their manuals …
Can there be anything more attractive and guaranteed to elicit the ‘aah’ factor than a brood of chicks and their mother? Jeremy Hobson looks at how to hatch chicks using a broody hen. There would be something wrong with any enthusiastic chicken-keeper if, once they were well versed in the …
Candling eggs is a straight-forward process but it helps to have some pictures to know what you’re looking for! It is necessary to candle eggs for fertility when you are incubating eggs artificially using an incubator. Infertile or bad eggs can be discarded so that there is no risk of …
Getting good results from a hatch will depend on the correct operation of your incubator. You should of course be familiar with your incubator manufacturer’s instructions before you make a start but there are a number of pitfalls to watch out for and subtle differences between different incubators. There are …
Most of us take great care with our incubation but how much care do we take with egg storage before the eggs are placed into an incubator or under a broody hen? If your hatching eggs are not cared for in the correct way, you will suffer from a reduced …
When things don’t go quite according to plan (which can and does happen when incubating poultry artificially) try using this incubation trouble shooting guide to work out what went wrong. This guide is a general guide and covers all poultry although we are using chicks / chickens as an example. …
These guidelines have been written to provide eBay sellers (or others supplying hatching eggs), some recommendations and guidance that can be referred to when selling hatching eggs on-line. They can also be used to educate buyers, so they know what to expect from sellers who are working to these guidelines.
Using a broody hen to incubate eggs and hatch chicks is of course the most natural way to hatch and has many benefits since she will usually hatch and rear the chicks without needing much assistance. Not all hens will go broody, some are better than others – utility birds will …
It is very easy to forget about nest box hygiene when considering incubating your eggs. A dirty nest box or site can cause you problems and you can end up with more embryos dying (known as DIS or ‘Dead in Shell’) than would have occurred had the nest been kept clean.
Some people say not to clean eggs before incubation, others swear by it. The general idea is that mother nature doesn’t clean her eggs before incubation and there’s actually a protective layer around the eggs (called the cuticle) that protects them by preventing bacteria from entering the egg through the pores …
Choosing the right incubator for your particular needs can be a daunting task. There are many different models and variants to incubate your hatching eggs and each model is slightly different having different levels of functionality. From the basic still air incubator where you turn eggs manually 3 times per …
During incubation, there is a suggested relative humidity range for the species you are hatching given by incubator manufacturers, based on tried and tested methods. Chicken eggs for example should be between 40% – 50% in order to get successful results.
