Introducing...

Godzilla (who will probably be called Zilla), the first chick to hatch. Silly bird hatched through the narrow end of the egg, missing the air cell altogether.

Godzilla, just after hatching

And HULKSMASH!  Hulksmash didn't want to hatch in the ordinary way either. Although he/she pipped about the same time as Godzilla- around 6pm on day 20, she didn't zip the way a chick ought to. She zipped about 1/2", and then kept trying to kick her way out. After it had been about 26 hours, and I could tell she was tiring, I peeled away a bit of the egg, and with a huge kick, she popped out of the egg into my hand.

Four of the five remaining eggs have pipped, and did so around midafternoon on day 21.  The last egg hasn't done anything yet.  It is Egg #3, the one that I took out yesterday and heard chirping.

Day 20

Chicks went into lockdown yesterday. I was a little confused, because it seems like many people put their eggs in lockdown on day 18. But my Brinsea doesn't stop turning until the beginning of day 19. And when you actually count day 21 as a day, that would make for a three day lockdown. So, I went with manufacturer instructions and didn't bump up the humidity until it quit turning. The instructions also say to take out the turning plate, and suggest kitchen fabric or something else for the bottom of the tray.

Brinsea with my hatching felt floor

I used some leftover felt to make a soft cover for the bottom. I thought the hard plastic would be hard for them to get their footing. I wanted to use white or dark green, but the only colors I had in the right quantities were yellow and red. I've heard red can be upsetting to chickens (looks like blood), so I went with yellow. I have to admit it makes it look like it was designed for the Brinsea.

I've been trying not to fret.  I feel much more optimistic this time around. I even bought a 25 lb bag of chick starter crumbles (medicated, because that's all they had in the 25 lb size) yesterday.

Today I started panicking again because I couldn't see any rocking, and there are no pips just yet. I decided that I would take egg #3 out of the incubator and go candle it. Yes, I realize this completely goes against the rules of lockdown. I couldn't help it.

So, I took it out (after sanitizing my hands) and started to carry it to the dark place in the house. I realize pretty quickly that I can hear it CHIRPING!!! Well. That beats the heck out of candling to know if it's alive or not. I let my four year old hear it chirp (I had to chirp to it so it would chirp back), and then stuck it back in the incubator.

I swear I won't open it again til a chick is hatched (and probably not even then if there's another pip). I hope they all hatch easily on their own.

Webcam!!!

I know that this is a wee bit dorky/extreme/OCD, but I have set up a web came so that hopefully other people can watch the chicks hatch.


I don't plan to broadcast beyond testing until the chicks begin to pip.  Because light quality is so poor at night, keep your fingers crossed they hatch in the daytime.

It seems like the link just does a still image of the incubator, and isn't actually live. Just in case, here is a LINK to the webcam.

Day 16

I've been really great at leaving the eggs alone since my last post.

I decided to do one last check. Well, second to last check. I may do a check just before lockdown, on day 18. Who knows. I had watched someone else's candling video whose eggs were 15 days along, and you could see movement. I was curious if I could see movement in mine.

I candled all 7 eggs today. All seven looked about the same in development, and looked exactly on schedule. Most looked like the air cells were still wonky. I saw absolutely definable movement in eggs 1, 2, 3, 6, 7. Pretty sure I saw movement in eggs 4 and 5, but it wasn't as dramatic and noticeable.

Day 12

So I'm sure this won't come as a surprise, but I candled 3 of the eggs today (5, 6, and 7).  All three were coming along nicely. I was surprised at how much they've changed since I last checked them. They're growing bigger all the time!

I'm starting to feel cautiously excited that I'm actually going to have a successful hatch this time!!

Day 10

Well, I candled the eggs in the Brower incubator, and I'm still 99% sure none of them are still alive. I'm more or less just letting them go because they don't stink and it doesn't hurt anything.

I candled two of the eggs (#3 and #4) in the Brinsea, and they are both alive and moving. I'm surprised at how much of a difference just a day or so makes. Already they are much darker in the shell, and it's a lot harder to see anything. Since the first two were so much harder to see, I left the rest alone. I am going to attempt to not mess with them any more as far as candling goes until day 18. I figure that each time I take them out, I run the risk of either breaking one, or introducing bacteria.

I am still extremely worried about the air cell issue. It would be heartbreaking to lose these chickens that close to the end due to careless post office handling.  I guess there's not much I can do, other than to keep my fingers crossed.

Day 7

It's actually day 8 now, but it's early in the day.

I candled last night, when it was still day 7. I saw movement in eggs 1-7, with the exception of egg #4. There was veining in 4, but I didn't see movement.

Temps in the Brower had been really low all day (like mid 90s) and I couldn't bring them up. I only candled cracked egg, and it didn't look good.

I tried to crank the temp a little higher, and this morning, temps were around 104, so I'm pretty sure all of the eggs in the Brower are dead.  I'll let them go a couple more days, just to be sure, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up tossing everything in there by Wednesday. I don't know how anything could survive the erratic temps of that incubator.

I did take a picture of egg #6 last night. I wanted to show how odd the air cells in these eggs are.

Same egg, but from a different angle. As you can see, the air cell
is more on the side than on the bottom.















I also took video of this same egg, and if you watch carefully, you can actually see the embryo moving around.

So this is a day 7 embryo. Kind of neat, huh?