Breeding Your Own Chicks
Temperature

• Introduction to Breeding Your Own Chicks
• Breeding Stock
• Suitable Eggs for Breeding Your Own Chicks
• Incubators What to Look For in Egg Incubators
• Egg Turning
• Ideal Temperatures for Incubating Eggs
• Humidity for Incubating Eggs
• Candling Eggs
• Pipping & Hatching Eggs
• Optimum Conditions for Incubation and Hatching
• Useful Items for Incubation and Hatching

For hens’ eggs, the first 19-day period in the incubator requires a temperature of 37.5°C at the centre of the egg.
On the 19th day, the temperature needs to be dropped very slightly to an optimum of 37°C.

Turning of the eggs also ceases at this stage because the chick is preparing to emerge. This involves ‘pipping’ or breaking through the internal membrane and shell with an especially hardened area of the beak. The chick can often be heard cheeping inside the shell. Once pipping has taken place, it is not long until the rest of the shell cracks and the chick then emerges.

As the embryos develop, they are producing some of their own heat so a careful watch needs to be kept on the temperature in case it goes too high. Increasing the ventilation is an effective way of doing this. Where chicks hatch early or have blood on the navel, it is often because the temperature is too high. Excessive heat will kill them.

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Copyright © Katie Thear 2005