I’m so excited today because my son and I  just made a home made egg incubator!!

A nice guy that bought my Rooster from me on the weekend also brought me a dozen fertilized Americauna chicken eggs!  I also have a handful of fertilized eggs myself…. 2 Buff Orpington/Dorking cross (which I am the most excited about), 2 purebread Dorkings, 2 Americauna/Dorking crosses and 2 Welsummer/ Dorking crosses.  Now I know that not ALL 20 of them will hatch but I’m REALLY excited to see if this works.

When I searched how to make an egg  incubator I came across an awesome site called Storm The Castle that explains it step by step including a video.  You can find it HERE if you want to see!

I will show you step by step how I did it using his instructions.

First get a styrofoam cooler.  Now you want to get a piece of glass (I got mine from a picture frame) and then trace it out on the top of the lid.  Cut it out smaller than the cut out and then tape the glass on with duct tape like so…..

TADA!!! Now you have your observation window!

Then you want to make a small hole in the side of the cooler that an old lamp will fit into.  I would have taken it apart to use properly but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to do that….geesh…So I had to prop it up with a tin and some books and then we duct taped it securely once inside like so….

Okay now put in a 25 watt light bulb and turn it on.  Place a thermostat and humidity reader in the incubator and a dish with water and a sponge in the corner.  The temperature should be between 98 and 101 fahrenheit or 37 – 38 degrees celcius and the humidity should be between 55 to 70 percent (for chicken eggs).

Place your eggs in and wait!!

Remember to turn them 1/4 to 1/2 a turn 3 times a day.  According to the instructions I found at Storm The Castle I don’t need to turn them the last three days before hatch time BUT I should increase the moisture.

It should take 21 days until hatch so their due date is May 8th!!

What I did was make an x with a pencil on one side of the egg so when I turn them I won’t get confused.  I also marked which ones were the cross breeds.

PS….Don’t wash the eggs.  It will take off the protective layer that will keep bacteria out of the egg. Also,  if you don’t have a rooster try kijiji!  Tell people you are looking for fertilized eggs.  You’d be amazed what’s out there!

Well it should be interesting to see how many of these hatch in 3 weeks time.

I’ll keep you posted!

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POOP!!! It is now a month later and I am not able to tell you if my incubator worked! Just 4 days before hatch our hydro went out for 7 hours, the incubator went down to 20 degrees celcius and the poor little things died!!  Note to self:  Have a back up power source or plan….