What you need to know about Incubation Day 18
Today is the final day you can work with your eggs before you leave them alone to do their thing. You will have to start preparing for hatching day, very exciting!
You will also be doing your last candling. Candling will help you determine if your eggs are healthy and can make it to the finish line or if any need to be removed that stopped developing along the way.
Get Ready
Again you need to make sure that you have everything you need for the candling ready before you take out your eggs from the incubator. Make sure your light is working and have a cloth or something available to warp your eggs in while you do the candling.
Have your record-keeping sheets available to compare what you see with previous candlings afterwards. Once everything is in place, fetch the eggs and start candling immediately.
What to Expect
Like the last time you did candling, it might be a bit tricky to see what’s going on inside the egg. At this point, the embryo is so big that it takes up most of the egg so you just might see a big dark blob at first.
After a bit of searching, you should be able to make out the baby chicken, what’s left of the yolk, veins and possibly even a heartbeat! You should notice pretty quickly if an egg didn’t develop as much as the others. This means that that particular embryo didn’t make it and should be removed from the incubator.
What to Do Next
Once you have determined that all remaining eggs are healthy and can go on to hatching, you will need to place them with the large side up in the incubator.
Make sure that you adjust the humidity and temperature accordingly since the last 3 days of incubation differs a little from the rest. Also, make sure that the egg turner is turned off. Eggs need to be left undisturbed in the last 3 days of incubation so that the fetus can settle and get ready for the big day.
During the last few days, you don’t have to do much except start warming up your brooder and get everything ready for the soon to hatch chicks. Keep an eye on the temperature and humidity as well. Now the countdown to hatching day begins!
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