Incubation of chicken eggs in the incubator

Incubating chicken eggs at home is very interesting, but rather troublesome. In order to timely obtain healthy, fluffy, sweet offspring, you must strictly follow a number of rules that you will find in our article. We will describe in detail the whole process of incubating chicks, ranging from the selection and laying of material into the device, ending with the happy, long-awaited birth of small birds.

Selection and storage of eggs
Terms and conditions for incubation
Growing chickens
- Egg incubation mode
- Timing of hatching chicks

Selection and storage of eggs

Choosing the right raw materials for an incubator is important, it makes up 50% of success, because even if you spend a lot of time on the incubation process and do everything correctly, an egg taken in advance, dirty, or irregularly shaped, reduces the chances of getting a healthy chick to naught. Incubator eggs can be selected and stored for no longer than 5 days after the chicken has laid them down. They should be stored in clean conditions, with an air chamber - that is, with a round end - up, in temperature conditions of 10-12 ° C.

Familiarize yourself with chick breeding rules with an incubator.

After the refrigerator, the material is strictly not suitable. Here is a list of aspects that we strongly recommend to consider when selecting for healthy offspring:

Important! To keep the shell clean, in a place where the chicken will lay eggs, pre-fill with clean sawdust. It is worth changing them often until the chicken has soiled them.

Purity. On the surface of the shell has its own microflora, which must be preserved during the entire incubation period, so the material before laying in no way should not be washed. Initially select as clean as possible, in extreme cases, you can gently wipe them with a dry cloth.
Freshness. As already mentioned, the testicle should be no more than five days old, so that the chick can be removed from it in the conditions of an incubator.
Smell. High-quality raw materials should not have a sharp, rotten, unpleasant smell. Tolerance - a small moldy, grape "flavor".
Proper storage conditions. All raw materials that were not stored properly will not work for an incubator.
Correct oval shape. A suitable testicle should have a symmetrical round shape, slightly elongated at one edge.Ball-shaped or too long items must be disposed of.
The average size. It is not necessary to take too small material - weak chicks will hatch from it, it is not necessary to choose a very large one - it may contain two yolks. The optimum weight of one correct egg should be 50-60 g.
Lack of physical damage. Ensure that the shell is intact, free of cracks and dents.

Check the eggs before laying on the incubation, you can make a home-made donoscope.

Having enlightened the shell with an ovoscope, you must discover inside three main health conditions:

one round yolk, located in the center, without touching the walls;
the air chamber is present, the size of a teaspoon (not more) and is located at the blunt base;
the color of the egg does not arouse suspicion: it is light, uniform, without spots and streaks.

Did you know? Nature laid down that the hen, hatching eggs, can itself remove some of them from the nest, at its discretion. This suggests that the chicken probably knows that the egg is defective and it does not make sense to hatch it, since a healthy chick cannot be made from it.

Terms and conditions for incubation

Since you have placed the future chicks in the incubator - the incubation period began. For not yet formed chickens and cockerels, it is exactly 21 days. Before starting the process, everything must be prepared. First of all, the device should be thoroughly cleaned, sanitized and ventilated.

Secondly It is better to mark one end of the eggs (stupid or sharp - not important) in advance, for example, with a cross. This is done for convenience, so that you do not get confused when you turn them over in the future.

While preparing the incubator, the material for the bookmark can remain at room temperature for up to 7 hours. This will help him warm up evenly from all sides. After the “settlement” of the future chicks in the device, the temperature in the incubator for eggs in the first 2-3 hours should already reach 37 ° C. In the future, according to the instructions, it will constantly change.

Did you know? There are incubators with trays equipped with automatic egg turning. It is very convenient, it allows not to open the device when it is undesirable to do it.

Growing chickens

Now begins the long, painstaking and at the same time interesting process of incubation and the formation of new lives of little birds.

Egg incubation mode

In order to visually display a graph of the temperature regime, as well as the moisture regime, turns and ventilation from the beginning to the end of the incubation of chicken eggs, you are provided with a special table.

Period	Dates, days	Temperature conditions	Moisture level	Egg turning	Ventilation
1	1-11	37.8 ° C	60-65%	Every 6-7 hours	-
2	12-17	37.6 ° C	55%	Every 4-6 hours	2 times for 5 minutes
3	18-19	37.3 ° C	48%	Every 6-7 hours	2 times for 20-25 minutes
4	20-21	37 ° C	65%	-	2 times for 5 minutes

As you can see, the whole process is divided into four periods and each of them has its own temperature and humidity indicators.

For breeding birds, you can make an incubator out of the fridge yourself.

In addition, turning and airing eggs is also not every day. The operation of the incubator should be checked regularly, up to 5-6 times a day.

Important! If the device fails and stays in this form for longer than 4 hours, the chicks will die and there will be no litter.

Proper, productive incubation of chicken eggs requires strict adherence to all incubation regimes shown in the table.

Timing of hatching chicks

On the twenty-first day of the incubation period, you can expect the appearance of small birds.It will take them from 5 to 7 hours to get out and get completely free from the shell. After the chicken is “born” and completely dried in the incubator, it can be moved to a nursery or just a cardboard box with a convector.

The first days the temperature in the box should be maintained within 33-35 ° C, on the third day it can be lowered to 29 ° C. Gradually, the chicks will get used to room temperature.

You will be interested to know how to grow turkeys, quails and ducklings in an incubator.

Small chicks are very susceptible to various diseases and viruses. To prevent high mortality, many people advise that they give birth to antibiotics from birth, or at least a weak solution of potassium permanganate.

We hope that our article, tips, as well as the table of incubation of chicken eggs in the incubator will help you to bring out healthy, strong, cute chicks, from which later adult, good chickens will grow.