Kelly's Annual Baby Chick Watch: 17 Babies Hatching Saturday!!!

Every February/March, I get my good ole Nurture Right 360 incubator out onto my kitchen counter and start "cooking" baby chicks. Nineteen days ago I placed 22 of my favorite colored eggs inside the incubator. Although my eggs are laid by mixed breed chickens, most chicks hatched will eventually lay eggs a similar color as their momma hens. My preferred egg color is the light blue and light green color. They look so pretty sitting on the counter of my kitchen!

Hatching baby chicks takes exactly 21-23 days, but most of them hatch on the 21st day. Since I have three pretty active roosters, most of my eggs are fertilized. When I select my eggs to place into the incubator, I can have pretty good certainly that most of them will turn into chicks.

The temperature inside the incubator is 99.5 degrees with 70-77% humidity. Throughout the 21 days, I pour about three-five tablespoons of water every day to keep the humidity at a high level. The humidity is key in making the eggshell softer so the chick can peck his or her way into the world.

For the first 18 days of the incubation period, a rotator rotates the eggs once per hour to simulate the similar movement of a broody hen sitting on a clutch of eggs (see my posted video). I removed the rotator yesterday, on the 18th incubation day (I have the number of days written on my calendar to keep track). The egg separator is removed so eggs can roll around freely inside the incubator while the chicks peck their way to freedom.

I apologize for the Weird Al music in the background...I guess the chicks need music to move and groove to, haha!

Candling eggs is my favorite thing to do while incubating chicks. Look at the shadow of the chick, the ammio sack, and the blood vessels inside this egg. The chick inside is a healthy baby!

Also, on the 18th day, I "candle" the eggs to check if there is a baby growing inside the egg. An example of candling an egg is shown in this picture. I shine a bright light on the egg to find the ammio sack and blood vessels around the baby. Some fertilized eggs form partially, but then stop developing because of a deformity in the embryo. When I candled the eggs yesterday, five of them were "duds" and I tossed them out into the woods...otherwise my kitchen would soon start to smell like rotten eggs.

I fully expect to hear the chicks start peeping within their eggs any minute. I absolutely love listening to the miracle of life inside their Easter egg colored shells.

Next week I'll post baby pictures of the chicks and videos of them hatching.

Thanks for reading my Country Squawk,

Kelly