How We Hatch the Eggs

The kids wanted to share some more information about the hatching eggs.

The eggs live in an incubator that keeps them warm and moist. The little white thing below the carton is a hygrometer that lets me check the temperature and humidity of the eggs from my phone.  It is important to keep them at the right temperature and to turn them a few times every day, especially for the first week.

There are light and dark colored eggs. The light colored eggs are standard Cochin eggs. They will be friendly birds that are on the larger side. They are good laying birds, as well as good meat birds. To see some information about them you can go to the Wild Acres Cochin webpage.

The darker eggs are called Welsummer. They are very pretty and lay all year round. They are also friendly, and tend to be very smart. To  see more about these birds, check out the Wild Acres Welsummer webpage.

This is our calendar. It gives us an idea of what we can expect as far as timelines. It should take 3 weeks for our eggs to hatch, and we've already done the first week! Two more to go and we should have baby chicks.

In a couple of days we will get to try candling the eggs (hold them over a bright light in a dark room) to see if we can see development of the embryos.  We can also check the air space at the top of the egg to see if the eggs are too dry or too wet. Next week we will stop turning the eggs so the chicks can get oriented the right way before hatching.