Hatching Eggs

I trawled the internet and forums to see if anyone could recommend a good basic incubator, as I am useless at DIY and will be using it for quantities later on I decided against making my own, or choosing one of the many small 6 egg incubators available and went for the highly recommended Hova-Bator.
I Ordered it on ebay and it duly arrived!!

OOHH I'm Excited-I unpack it and order my eggs (again on ebay)-I have 6 Rhode Island Red Eggs from the Tottle Strain - Seller is dulcie76 - Ebay auction number - 300214550283-on their way!!

The seller says in the ebay auction that recently a senior member of the Rare Poultry Society saw her birds and was impressed by them.

My eggs arrived on Tuesday-incredibly well packed-and I turn on my incubator to set the temperature, a lot of fiddling about ensues over the rest of the day while I try to get it right.

I leave the eggs to rest (late pm) and get up to room temperature.

Finally I got the temperature right 100 degrees C.
After marking the eggs with pencil, X on one side 1 on the other, I set them all on X side up with the thermometer laid on top to start incubating!!

I spend the next few days turning the eggs 3 times a day and try to candle them (shining a light through the eggs to see if any are fertile) Not having much luck, shall try again tomorrow.

Stepped up the turning as per my information sheet from the hovabator seller to 5 - 7 times a day (Just a quarter turn).

Tried candling them again and it looks like only 2 are fertile, I shall keep a very close eye on them during the next few days-I don't want any eggs to explode!!

I can see why people want automatic egg turners now, I have to keep remembering to go turn the eggs and keep the warm water topped up for humidity!!

This is what my Rhode Island Red adult birds should look like.

There must be something happening, I have had to alter the heater down a little and am topping up the water more regularly to keep the humidity up.
I am getting sooo excited!!

11 days to go and I have had another couple of attempts at DIY candling-I have to admit I am rubbish at this.
I shall have to get a proper egg candler and try again.

I Just had to turn the thermostat down again, 5 Days to go, I am still rubbish at candling, But I have been assured it will come with experience-Not sure I can take the stress of doing this again, I just hope that one of the chicks (thinking positive) is a hen and it will go through broody periods and I can have it hatch other eggs for me.

Only 2 more days to go and the suspense is killing me!!
I have learned that I do have patience, (turning eggs-adding water for humidity etc.) but this last few days is torture, I followed the instructions and have stopped turning the eggs today, topped up the reservoirs with warm water and now I have to wait-I am still rubbish at candling, but now I can not touch the eggs until they hatch (or not)
Ho Hum-

9 Hours to go and I am sooo excited!!
One of the eggs is wibbling about inside the incubator, all the others are scornful in their quiet disdain of it, I think it is about to hatch-shall keep you posted.

AArrghh!!
Have I done something wrong, Did I look at them in a funny way? Are they humid enough-too much? all these thoughts are running through my head, the countdown finished at 11pm last night, I woke bright and early at 7am this morning expecting to see at least 1 chick but there are still 6 eggs staring back defiantly at me, even the egg which was wibbling about is now strangely silent.
Absolutely nothing to report yet, and it is 12 noon on day 21.

I woke up this morning,
Feeling really down,
Then I saw something that-
Turned me right around!!

3 hours later and this is all!!

I think this chick has gone back to sleep-AARGGGHHHH!!

3 hours later-The Chick has Landed.

24 hours old and this little chick looks like a chick now.

Number 2 hatched out-sorry the photo of the 2 chicks is so red, the heat lamp is affecting the colour.
I still have 4 eggs unhatched and this is day 25, I shall have a look around on the internet to find out what to do next!!

I could not stand it any longer, All the advice I could find on the internet stated that the eggs should start hatching on day 21 and all be hatched within 48 hours of the first one, so I cracked the remaining 4 eggs open to see what was going on-I found out that only 2 of the 6 eggs were fertile and these were the 2 eggs which had hatched, so well done me, I had on my first attempt incubated and hatched out 2 healthy chicks from the 2 fertile eggs in this batch!!
This is the end of this story.
Bye for now & see you all soon.

I had so much fun doing this, I decided to try an experiment, I am going to incubate 6 free range eggs I bought at the reduced rate of 60p from my local store.
When this lens is up and running, I will link up to it so that you can track my progress!!