My homemade incubator

No joy yet although the eggs are extremely heavy. Im not sure whether to keep them going now or abandon the project. Today will be the 3rd day that they are overdue by. I did also notice at one point the temp spiked to 42deg C but it was only like that for a minute at the most. If I have no luck the friday I shall take the eggs out and look inside each one. I shall probably make a new incubator or tweek this one and buy some new eggs from ebay. Im hoping it was down to fertility rate due to the time of year I bought the eggs rather than something I did. Keeps my spirits up thinking that way anyhow

I did think about candling them but thought it was a no no to touch them after the 18day mark. I'll give it a go tomorrow evening. I've got the humidity upto 75% now and its staying there nicely. Im pretty sure I can hear noises coming from the incubator also but could be my overactive imagination 

It does smell a little mouldy in the incubator. I did clean it thourally before starting but it seems a little smelly. Not eggy smelly just evaporated water/mouldy smell. Maybe I should of given it another clean half way through. I could do this whilst I have the eggs out for candling but maybe thats something I can do next time.

Anyhow fingers all crossed this end. Cheers for the reply Kegs

Ok the chick died but I have some pictures of it and removed the air sac from around it to get a better look at the chick forming. Hopefull this will provide a bit of an education to others as it certainly helped me learn alot.

Cracking the eggs. A couple had a little blood in them and some were noticeably more watery than others.


Then on the 8th (last) egg, I noticed it wasnt cracking as easily. This appeared


I didnt want to put it back in the incubator as I could contaminate the other eggs so I quickly setup the brooder and placed him/her/it in there. They were breathing noticeably for a good 4 hours so there was me thinking this could hatch.


Anyhow the chick didnt make it, so I decided to probe futher




Can anyone offer any information on how far the chick was along? The yolk sac seems pretty big still so im guessing it would have been another 2 or 3 days. This would of meant the incubation period being over 1 month long. Im stuill unsure what I should do with the 5 eggs left in the incubator. They look hopeful upon candling but as they are long overdue im not expecting much.





 

Thanks Kegs thats some real interesting reading there. I also took it upon myself to google the terms in inverted commas "hatched on day 26" "hatched on day 27" "hatched on day 28" etc etc and have come up with some interesting articles on this forum and backyardchickens. I was worried back at the beginning about the temp spiking and it "cooking" the eggs so I adjusted the thermostat down a little as at a couple of points it went upto 42deg C but only for 2mins or less. So I thought my temp was up too high but it appears from reading that slow to hatch chicks are caused by lower temps. Maybe i'll have luck with the others afterall

Anyhow another 9 bantam light sussex eggs have been ordered and shall arrive next week. I also have another 4 eggs from a farm near me but they could be unfertile, I just thought id take a gamble on them.
This time around I shall have a perspex window in the incubator so I can see whats going on without having to lift the lid and disturb the humidity/temp. I shall also look into putting a couple of vent holes at the bottom and shall look into making an egg turner courtesy of a few youtube videos and a bit of woodwork. I'll keep you posted as to how I get on. If I have no luck this second time around I shall take the plunge and buy an incubator but being an engineer by trade I try not to buy what im pretty certain I can make. Maybe my certainty isn't what it used to be 

Thanks for the support Kegs.

Heres a few of links I found on late hatching...

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/437207/its-day-23-no-signs-of-eggs-hatching

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/533942/one-chick-hatched-on-day-20-now-its-day-22-and-no-more-excitement

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/444573/should-i-have-helped-sooner

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/522807/its-day-26-and-i-can-see-him-now-do-i-help

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/487935/hatched-on-day-26


I was thinking of cracking the eggs slightly whilst they are in the incubator, does anyone know if this would help? i.e. a slight fracture, then wait for say half a day then make a bigger hole and so on and so on...