In our spare time on the farm and a fun little hobby Brad and I have started incubating eggs. It is very fascinating if you have never done it before. The eggs small side up are put on the egg rotater. Close up the incubator and then you leave it alone for 10 days. After 10 days you open the incubator and turn off the lights in the room. Use a candlelight (special light) and put it up against the egg. If the egg glows it is not fertile. If there is a big blob mass in it then it might possibly hatch! So throw out all the non-fertile eggs and close the incubator back up. Then wait till day 18 and take all of the fertile eggs off the egg rotater and set them in the incubator on the wire bottom ready to hatch. You can hear the chicks in the eggs a few days before they hatch peeping...I am serious! I did not believe it until I heard it the first time. On day 21 they will hatch. The chicks are very wet and weak when born but after about 12 to 24 hours in the incubator they are ready to get out and put under a heat lamp. They will find the water and food and immediatley know how to scratch like chickens do and back up and look for food.
This is our first americana chick to begin to hatch out of the egg. It peeped for 3 days before it finally hatched. It is a blonde chick. This has been such a learning experience for our boys. They help collect eggs from the chicken coops, feed them, and water them. They know that you have to be very careful with them b/c they break easy. We put them in the refrigerator and eat them when we are not saving them to incubate. We also sell them to friends and a local business for about $2.00 a dozen. The yolk is very golden yellow and rich in flavor.
A few hours after the chick hatched.
Don't really know what happened to our first batch of eggs this year. I think it was too humid for them. But these are the 4 chicks that we have and we are incubating right now and on day 4 now.
Ok...this is an interesting photo I know. But we were frying wild turkey last weekend and we got our first double yolk egg. It was a HUGE egg before we cracked and Jeffery said "I bet it will be a double yolk" I said..."well let me get my camera"!
In our spare time on the farm and a fun little hobby Brad and I have started incubating eggs. It is very fascinating if you have never done it before. The eggs small side up are put on the egg rotater. Close up the incubator and then you leave it alone for 10 days. After 10 days you open the incubator and turn off the lights in the room. Use a candlelight (special light) and put it up against the egg. If the egg glows it is not fertile. If there is a big blob mass in it then it might possibly hatch! So throw out all the non-fertile eggs and close the incubator back up. Then wait till day 18 and take all of the fertile eggs off the egg rotater and set them in the incubator on the wire bottom ready to hatch. You can hear the chicks in the eggs a few days before they hatch peeping...I am serious! I did not believe it until I heard it the first time. On day 21 they will hatch. The chicks are very wet and weak when born but after about 12 to 24 hours in the incubator they are ready to get out and put under a heat lamp. They will find the water and food and immediatley know how to scratch like chickens do and back up and look for food. 
This is our first americana chick to begin to hatch out of the egg. It peeped for 3 days before it finally hatched. It is a blonde chick. This has been such a learning experience for our boys. They help collect eggs from the chicken coops, feed them, and water them. They know that you have to be very careful with them b/c they break easy. We put them in the refrigerator and eat them when we are not saving them to incubate. We also sell them to friends and a local business for about $2.00 a dozen. The yolk is very golden yellow and rich in flavor. 
A few hours after the chick hatched.
Don't really know what happened to our first batch of eggs this year. I think it was too humid for them. But these are the 4 chicks that we have and we are incubating right now and on day 4 now.
Ok...this is an interesting photo I know. But we were frying wild turkey last weekend and we got our first double yolk egg. It was a HUGE egg before we cracked and Jeffery said "I bet it will be a double yolk" I said..."well let me get my camera"! 
Amy, I remember when my mom hatched baby chicks with her sixth grade class and she could not eat eggs for a year! : ) I was just lookin on Yahoo! this morning and saw the tornado devastation in Magee. Isn't that where you are? Praying you are all safe and made it through the weather. I LOVE your posts! AE
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