Just A Little Information...

I want to play smart and give everyone a little info on the whole incubation process.

I will explain this picture.

1. The first day the chick/duck/quail etc egg is placed in the incubator after you have let it stay at room temp for at least 6 hours... is just yolk...or so you think. So if you candle all your eggs already and you see nothing and you throw them out, you just messed up. The fist day you will see nothing, go ahead and put them in your incubator.
2.On day 6 you will see a little "pea" almost, and it will have little "tentacles". Well what the "pea" is the embryo of what you are incubating, and the "tentacles" are is blood vessels. At this point in incubation it is very important when you turn your eggs be very very easy! The embryos can detach from the blood vessels and they will die. Now sometimes if you have dark colored eggs you will not be able to see anything yet unless you have a high power candler, I just use a flash light in a pitch dark room. And also sometimes some eggs dark or light will not show anything for a while so if you do not see anything at a week leave them there for a while longer and wait.
3. On day 12 ish about 2 weeks you will notice a little body and blood vessels. By now if you can not see a body or anything other than the yolk, get rid of them. I have had more than one blow up from being rotten, because think about it you have eggs in about 100 degree temps and they have been in that for about 2 weeks, so when they blow up it STINKS!! And if you are doing this inside your home you do not want anything like that to happen. I have had it happen under a chicken.Crazy I know!
4. At about 3 weeks you will start to notice alot of dark when you candle your eggs. That is a good thing because that means you have an almost fully developed critter!
5. And at 4 weeks for most eggs they should start hatching! And when they do, do not help them unless you just HAVE TOO, they are still connected to the egg on the inside and it has to have time to dry and give there umbilical cord time to do what it needs to.

The picture of air sacs. Air Sacs are well air sacs for the baby ... the air sacs get larger as the baby grows, the babies will use the air sacs while they are in the egg to breathe.

The blood ring is usually a dead embryo. I have had it before and they hatch and everything work out.

This picture is a better one than above!

I just thought I would show some sort or intellagence.

So if you are doing this for the first time or not and have questions please feel free to ask I will help the best I can!



(* This is in my own words and how I have learned everything throughout the years, It may not be right to everyone because everyone has there own opinion on how to do things and I am just trying to help people the best I can*)