Breeding Your Own Chicks
Useful Items

• 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

Finally, it is worth assembling a collection of miscellaneous items that are useful, before embarking upon the processes of incubation and hatching. In addition to egg scales and a candler, some of the items that I find invaluable include:

• an egg carton for storing eggs until there are enough for the incubator.
• a chinagraph pencil for marking them with an X or other identification.
• sanitant for egg washing, with a bowl for the warm solution.
• a plastic tray for holding the washed eggs until they are put into the incubator.
• a small humidity gauge.
• a notebook and pen for making notes which can be transferred to more permanent records later.
• thin sticky tape for valuable cracked eggs. (A little nail varnish is also effective).
• a pair of scissors.
• kitchen roll for spills and a 1001 other uses.
• baby or toddler wipes for keeping fingers sterile when handling eggs.

Copyright © Katie Thear 2005