Blog for a chook lovers

I promised this information to Alana, who followed the birth of our first chick.

As I often do, I have a go at things myself rather than pay for something. This time I was having a go at an incubator for some fertile chicken eggs that we had. Our chooks would not go broody so I had to find an alternative.

This is our incubator. It is a styrofoam box that we picked up at Youngs Vegi Shed. They are free, normally behind the counter there somewhere.

The first thing we did was fix a light, through a small hole in the top of the box. The light that we used was given to us from someone who purchased then at a garage sale.

**Ignore the seed raising mix at the back. Trying another experiment. 
We use a blue light with a wattage of 25Watts. You can use the traditional light (incandescent) or the fluro type globe. The wattage is the same. 25 or 24 watts. Any stronger and it will get too hot and kill the embryo (found out the hard way). You will find that this stays about 35-45 degrees, depending on the outside temperature. During the day it warms up, and cools as the day ends. I had a dimmer switch to put on, but must have wired it wrong and it blew up. So if you have a sparky at hand, see if they will wire it up for you.. I know a couple but was too stupid to ask for help.

I still have the switch, as I like to change the globe to candle the eggs.

The way that I control the temperature is this little door at the front.

It has two purposes. Control the temp and also as a viewing area. This allows me to monitor the eggs and open the door/lid to control the temp.
I made this out of an old takeaway container.
I cut the bottom off it and slid it into the hole that I cut in the box. I then used silicone to fill the gap around the sides, just to ensure that it is sealed properly.

In the cooler months I have not had to use the door, but as it had warmed up the past couple of days I have found that I just remove the door completely and it stays around 35-37 degrees. There will be some that say that it is too cool for the eggs, but it is much better than being at 45-50 degrees. The chicks will survive a drop in temp, but not an increase. This is where a dimmer switch would come in handy. You will get to know when to take the lid off and when to leave it on.

If you have a room somewhere that stays a constant temp (very hard to find) then this will save you the hassle of checking the temp all the time there is a fluctuation in the outside temp. We kept ours in the garage.

So inside you will the the eggs sitting on a wire tray that has been folded into a wave pattern. This just helps when rotating the eggs 2-3 times a day.. it just keeps them stable and keeps the temp even around the egg. I have a thermometer close to the eggs so that I can keep an eye on it. What you can't see is a water dish. It is important to have some humidity during the growing process. This prevents too much moisture drawing from the egg. I have read that you should increase that the humidity should be increased close to the hatch day.. 90% aprox. To do this you need to increase the surface area of the water. I just used a wider dish or Tupperware container. 

In about 21 days you should see a little crack in the egg, and in 24 hrs you will have a chick.

We have lost a lot due to high temperatures, If you can get a dimmer switch, and a room that has a constant temp, more so than a garage then you should have come success. 

This is what you should end up with. 

A Chick that is happy to sleep on your hand.