I am disappointed to say that not a single chick hatched out. It is what was to be expected, but I held out hope to the end. The huge fluctuations in temperature was certain death according to all information I could find, but the little guys kept living and even 2 days before hatch day, I could see them jumping around inside. Our supposition is that they just didn’t develop properly and were unable to pip their way out.

The temperature first went out of range on day 5 when it went up to 110 degrees. I was so hesitant to throw out 51 eggs that we decided to wait a bit.  We adjusted the thermostat and it stayed steady until day 8, when it went up to 11o degrees again. We figured this was the end of them, but on day 9, I candled them and saw little eyes and the spider like veins you should see. I decided to leave them a bit longer and the temperature continued to stay steady, and they continued to develop. On day 13, I candled all 51 eggs and only pulled 9. All the others were jumping and kicking. After this, the temperature began to dip too low, getting down to the 80’s. On day 16, Roy changed out the thermostat and all the chicks were still moving. It could have been that first temperature spike that caused the loss of viability, or just the combination of it all.

We have been saving eggs this last week, so that we could try again now that we have the thermostat fixed. I am going to clean the incubator and set those ASAP. So begins the countdown again…21 days to go.

On a happy note, we have one hen that is setting! She gave us a hard time the first week or so. Every time we would go in and she’d be sitting on a different nest. That left the other nest open for laying, and then she would go back to the original. We couldn’t keep up with which ones were fresh and which ones to leave. Finally, I marked some eggs with a pencil and threw away all the rest. For a couple of days this worked well, because I could gather the unmarked ones and leave the old ones for her…we assumed they wouldn’t hatch  because she wasn’t consistently setting. Then she up and changed nests permanently and was never out of the new one. After she didn’t move for 3 days, I gathered up the old marked eggs and threw them out…again. I left her on 8 eggs that I marked just to be sure and there she still sits. This is day 11 of her doing her job right, so we may have chicks in the coop in 10 days.