So you’ve decided to incubate some eggs. Whether these will be your first chicks, or you already have an established flock, incubating your own chickens is very rewarding and can be a great learning experience for the new chicken wrangler. I have incubated eggs off and on for the past 20 years and have definitely been through some trial and error. I hope my tips below can help walk you through the steps of incubating your own birds.
1. Choosing your incubator
Unless you are planning to incubate several dozen eggs at a time, you don’t have to invest a lot of money into your incubator. The classic styrofoam still-air incubator can do just fine if you are looking to just play around with hatching a few of your own eggs. However, I have found that after a couple of uses, the thermostat wears out and it can be difficult to keep the temperature consistent. With these, there is a lot more room for error when it comes to temperature, turning, and humidity levels.
When I first started hatching poultry as a kid, I used one of these and although the hatch rate wasn’t great, I did learn so much because of how hands-on you have to be with these. Before I added the optional egg turner, I had to turn each egg by hand every day in addition to adding water to maintain the humidity. That is a lot of opening the lid to let the heat and humidity out! Most of these incubators can fit at least 3 dozen eggs.
If you are paying for purebred eggs and/ or want a higher hatch rate, I highly recommend the Nurture Right 360. The NR360 is almost entirely automated and has done an excellent job at keeping its temperature consistent. The NR360 has a built-in timer that will turn off the included egg turner at day 18 and has exterior water channels, so you don’t really ever have to open the incubator up until there are chicks! At around $180, I think the NR360 is a solid investment.
There are several budget-friendly options available on Amazon as well, but I have not tested these.
2. Choosing your eggs
If you already have some hens and at least 1 rooster, this part is easy! It is important to use eggs that are as fresh as possible and have not been cleaned or refrigerated. Eggs are laid with a protective coating that prevents bacteria from permeating the shell, so you never want to wash the egg and remove that coating. If my eggs have a little bit of mud or poop on them, I just go ahead put them in the incubator; if they are heavily soiled to the point they would not be able to turn easily, I toss them back outside for a snack for my ladies or just wash and put in the fridge.
If these are your first chicks or you are wanting to add some new breeds, your best bet is to find a reputable breeder near you. Facebook poultry groups are a great resource for finding breeders, and some even ship to you. Look for breeders that are NPIP certified as they have more strict health regulations and in my experience, the birds that are healthy enough to be certified are very well taken care of. Another option is to check out swap meets where you can find dozens of different breeds. I would be cautious about these though since you don’t really have any kind of guarantee on the breed or health status. Look for eggs advertised as hatching eggs so you know they are most likely fertilized and have not been cleaned.
3. Setting up your Incubator
Now that you have your incubator and your fertilized eggs, it is time to get the incubator set up! This is the one time you actually want to read all of the directions in a box. If you are using the NR360, it should be pre-set for chicken eggs as soon as you plug it in. I always recommend adding an extra digital thermometer (they are usually around $10 at Rural King or Lowes) just to be extra sure the temperature showing on the outside of the incubator matches what is inside.
You want to set your incubator to 99.5 degrees and wait until that temperature is reached before adding eggs. Next, you want to add your water. Usually, your incubator will have 2 water channels. Fill 1 of them right now and keep it filled for the first 18 days. I have seen some say that eggs need 60% humidity to start with, but I have had great results starting at around 45%. If your incubator is showing 40 or under, I would add a little bit of water to the 2nd channel.
4. Wait and Wait Some More!
Chicken eggs take about 21 days to hatch, although you could have some hatch day 20 or even day 22. After about a week in the incubator, you can candle your eggs with a built-in candler or a good flashlight. Candling is not necessary to hatch, but it is very exciting to see that little heart beat. To candle an egg, you will want to be as quick as possible. When the room is dark, remove the egg from the incubator (ideally without lifting the lid all the way) and hold the flashlight to the larger bottom part. Be sure to wrap your hand around the base so the light is all concentrated on the egg.
If there is an embryo inside, there will be veins branching out from a small dark spot. Be sure to return the egg quickly and put it back the way it was facing. Some hatchers mark the eggs they know have growing chicks and toss out the ones without growth. If my incubator isn’t crowded, I just leave them all in.
At day 18, your eggs should not be turned anymore. If you are using a turning tray, remove it from the incubator. If you are using the NR360 or a similar machine, it will automatically stop turning at day 18. At this point, begin filling the 2nd water channel to raise the humidity. You will want to have around 70% or more humidity; be sure to check your incubator’s directions to see if you should remove one of the air plugs at this time. If you are keeping both channels full and still not reaching a good humidity, you may add a wet sponge to the incubator.
5. Pipping
Around day 21 you will start to see little holes in the eggs and hear peeping- it is baby time! It can take them several hours to “unzip” the egg, so do not worry if it seems like they aren’t making progress. It can be really hard to not help the little guys at this point, but helping often does them more harm than good as they may still be absorbing the yolk at this point and be taking their sweet time on purpose. Often, if the bird is not strong enough to break its way out on it’s own, it is not strong enough to survive.
Once your chicks have made it all the way out of the shell, they need to stay in the incubator to dry off. It is important to not open the incubator to handle these first few guys since the other eggs are still hatching and need the humidity still. The chicks just “ate” the rest of the yolk, so they do not need to eat or drink for another day or two.
At about day 22 when everyone is dry and fluffy, I remove the chicks and put them in their brooder. If you still have eggs that have not hatched, it is okay to leave them for another day to see if anything happens. At day 23, I like to open the shell with a Dremel to see what happened to any un-surviving embryos (you definitely don’t have to though).
A freshly hatched, fluffy chick. Note it’s Egg Tooth at the tip of it’s beak.
At this point, everyone is ready to move in to their warm brooder where they will stay for the next 6 weeks or so until they are feathered enough to go outside.
