What you need to know about Incubation Day 1
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To make the whole process of hatching your own eggs a little less daunting, we will take you through a day by day process so that you know what to expect. If you read our previous articles, you should know that there are a few things you should do before you start incubating your eggs. Just to make sure you remember, we will give you a quick summary of what to do before incubation begins.
The Incubator
It is important to prepare your incubator before you get your eggs. If you already have the eggs, don’t worry the eggs will be ok outside the incubator for 7 days before it is too late to start incubation. To prepare the incubator you will have to disinfect it and clean it properly.
Give it time to dry before you use it for the first time. It is advisable to run your incubator for a week before you use it, but it’s not the most important step. Running it for 24 hours before you place your eggs inside will also do. The reason for running it so long before incubation starts is to make sure that everything is stable and working perfectly to support eggs.
It Begins!
So you’ve now prepared everything necessary for incubation. Your incubator is ready and the temperature is stable at 37.5 degrees Celsius. Your humidity fluctuates a bit but you managed to get it stable by either adding more water or opening the lid of the incubator to let some of the humidity out until it stabilised at 55%.
Finally, it is time to put in your eggs! You can make yourself a cheat sheet to keep track of all the important information you need to remember during the next 21 days of incubation. This sheet should contain the day you started incubation, the temperature, humidity, candling dates, when to stop turning eggs and the expected hatching day.
If you do not have an inbuilt egg turner or you prefer to do the egg turning yourself, you might want to mark your eggs with an O on the one side and an X on the other so you are sure that all eggs are turned. You will also have to set yourself an alarm to turn your eggs. It is best to start off with turning the eggs 5 times a day for the first week after that you can reduce the amount to 3 times per day.
All you can do now is sit back, relax and wait. Do keep an eye on the humidity and temperature since it is the most crucial part of incubation.
