We bought a new incubator a couple of months ago, when the old one we were given quit working. So far, we have used it for two batches of eggs. Our first batch, which started with 56 eggs, gave us 35 chicks. Hatch day was very exciting! This was the first one to hatch. The poor thing had a few hours with no company, and was very lonely.
That evening, we took all the babies out of the incubator; there were already 24 of them!
The next morning we moved all 35 out to the brooder.
About a week later, we started the incubator again, with a fresh batch of 56 eggs. Princess decided this was a great place to sleep; it was nice and warm! However, she must have pushed the lid a little, and that messed with the turning mechanism. We had to make Princess stop sleeping there.
These eggs are hatching tonight; so far, we have 16 chicks out of the 55 that we left after candling the 56 we started with. The first lot moved outside into a pen on the grass yesterday. There were 34 of them left; a cat pulled one through a crack in the side of the coop one day and had a snack. We patched up the crack. This picture shows what I saw one day this week when I opened the door:
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