![]() Each of my kids were able to watch at least one hatch and I was able to catch one on video as well: The next three days were full of hatching chicks. The humidity and warmth is what the babes need. Leave your chick in the incubator for as long as you can, for up to 3 days. It will be very wet and look very tired from all of that hard work! It will soon start to hop around and dry off. And a few hours later, we had our first (perfectly healthy) chick.Īfter it hatches, it may lay still and rest for a few minutes. Yes, I had more faith in Nature and letting her run the show. Confident that we had kept the temperature proper, the humidity great, and even managed to only candle the chicks once. But by morning light, and with some much needed coffee flowing, I felt better. He was a little early, would he be strong enough to come out? Would he make it? What if he doesn’t make it? What if our very first chick to hatch doesn’t make it? Would that farm that sells one day old chicks be open now? Maybe I should go get some one day old chicks just to be safe? I could keep them in my closet – the kids would never know if I had to do a swap out … You know … thoughts such as this that seem so rational at 3 am. I was up every hour in the night checking on this babe. I’m not going to pretend I was calm and cool throughout this first hatch. Our first chick “pipped” on Day 19 and then waited a full 15 hours before deciding to unzip. Once it is almost all the way around you will see it start to push with it’s back legs, the shell will open up, and the chick will be out! From this position, it uses it’s egg tooth (which each little babe will have on the tip of it’s beak) to peck around the fat part of the shell, ‘unzipping’ itself. The chick develops with it’s head in the fat part of the shell. This waiting can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours.Įventually, after that pip the chick will “unzip” the shell. After the chick pips, they rest and think and wait (and make their Mama hen’s a little nervous). This is the very first little poke through the shell. ![]() Anytime after about Day 19 you will see your chicks “pip” their shell. Incubating chicken eggs requires patience – for the incubation period and also for the hatch. At this point, you are also to increase the humidity to 65%. On Day 18, the eggs are removed from the egg turner, and simply laid on their sides in the incubator. But now, on Day 18 the fun really begins. Up until this point, you have popped the eggs in the egg turner (pointy end down) added water to keep the humidity at a bout 50% and otherwise left the be. So, we left off our last chick post on Day 18. I still owe you a post on candling and chick development – which I will get to you this week, but I was too excited to share this post on ‘The Hatch” to wait. ![]() If you follow along with us on our Facebook Page, you were able to share in our excitement this weekend! (And if you don’t, please do! A few weeks ago I wrote about incubating chicken eggs with kids and told you I would add a few more posts.
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