Tips for Successfully Hatching Eggs at Home

1) Get your incubator up and running at least 3-5 days before your eggs arrive.

2) Don’t trust your incubator settings. Incubator readouts are notoriously incorrect. Use a RELIABLE secondary thermometer/hygrometer to make sure you have the incubator set correctly.

3) When you receive your eggs, let them rest pointy end down for 24 hours. This allows the air cell to settle back into place if it has been dislodged. Once your eggs have rested, move them as little as possible. We don’t recommend you candle them and roll them around looking at the patterns on the shells. This can cause the air cell to easily dislodge again.

4) Use an automatic turner for your eggs. If you hand turn or do not turn at all, this can decrease hatch rates.

5) Maintain a temp of 99.5° throughout incubation and lockdown. The humidity should be around 45% or less during incubation. 60-65% at lockdown. You can also DRY hatch but we recommend at lockdown to increase the humidity to 60-65% during that time. This will help soften the shell and allow your chicks a better chance to peep and have a successful hatch.

6) I don’t recommend candling shipped eggs because they have already gone through enough with the shipping process. Just handle them as little as possible, candling isn't going to increase the hatch rate anyways.

7) Leave the chicks in the incubator during the hatch for 24-48 hrs unless all of the eggs have hatched. If you open the incubator while chicks are hatching - even if they are not externally pipped - the change in humidity can cause the shell membrane to shrink-wrap around the chick and suffocate it.** I know you will have the urge to pull them out but they will be fine!

Please keep in mind that the industry average for shipped eggs is 50% due to the trauma that eggs go through during shipment. They’re dropped, flipped, exposed to extreme temps and xrays, shook, and are often delayed.

50% is an average. Some people will hatch more and some will hatch fewer. I have had hatch rates as high as 85% and some less than 50%. A LOT depends on your incubator. If you have questions about what incubators we recommend, please reach out to us. Some of those store bought incubators or even some on Amazon are not the best quality. We can recommend some not so expensive ones but its really up to you on what is affordable and if you have had experience hatching eggs in the past.

Now speaking of hatching, I have to step away because I noticed some peeping sounds coming from 1 of our incubators as I walked past it earlier. We wish you luck and happy hatching, it's one of our favorite things about raising Quail and Chickens!