Chicken coops plans

When looking to hatch chicken eggs, you should first gather eggs from a flock of hens. Avoid those eggs which have cracked or very thin shells. Also discard any dirty eggs and keep only clean eggs for hatching. A dirty egg should never be wiped with any damp or soft cloth as this removes the protective coating on the outside exposing the eggs to bacteria and other diseases.

Remember that to successfully hatch eggs of a baby chick, you need to take certain precautions. These include precautionary methods not only during the incubation process but even before you start the incubator. Within three days of being set from hens, the eggs should be placed in an incubator. You should also care to see that before being placed inside an incubator, the eggs need to be bought down to room temperature.

The main reason why eggs should be brought down to room temperature is because abrupt direct warming from 55 degrees to 100 degrees reduces the hatchability of the eggs as it results in moisture condensation on the egg.

There are many different incubators that one can choose. The right type of incubator to hatch eggs depends on the present and future needs of the producer. The two main types of incubators available are forced-air and still-air incubators. The incubator should be started a few days before the eggs are placed inside so that the temperature, humidity and ventilation systems can be checked. Humidity and ventilation are very important and both need to be controlled for the 21 hatching incubation process so as to prevent loss of excess moisture.

When placing eggs inside the incubator, you should never set them with the small side pointing up. Most eggs are always placed with the larger side facing up. The eggs should be turned every few hours for the first 18 days so that all sides of the egg can be warmed and the eggs can adjust to the different positions. Do not turn the eggs within the last 3 days of incubation.

Depending on the type of poultry, the number of days required to hatch eggs also varies. On an average, hatching chicken eggs take 21 days while duck eggs usually take 37 days for hatching. All chicken eggs placed inside the incubator at the same time might not hatch on the same day. Usually all eggs hatch within 48 hours of each other. Once the eggs have hatched, the incubator needs to be properly cleaned and wiped before being reused for hatching other eggs.