After the unexpected demise (murder!) of Randy the Rooster and another one of our hens, we decided to use the incubator that I bought for Brian last Christmas. It holds a dozen eggs. Since rooster sperm can survive in a hen for 2 to 15 weeks (no kidding!), we collected ours for 2 days (6 eggs total), and got another 6 from our neighbors.
It’s been about a week and a half and we pulled out the “candler” three days ago. For those of you who don’t know, a candler is a special flashlight where you can (sort of) see inside the egg. The first time we candled the eggs, we could definitely see “shadows” in there. They were all on one side (of the inside, of course) of each egg. (For those of you who might ask, yes, the incubator turns the eggs every two hours.) We thought it was going to be a bust but we candled two days later (yesterday) and those shadows are MUCH larger!
We researched candling online. Depending on the type of egg, many people see veins inside. We didn’t see that but they’re brown eggs and the shells are very thick. We do have one blue egg from our neighbor and we can’t see inside that egg at all. We are praying we have chicks by day 21! If they do start to hatch, the grandbabies are going to race right over to watch!
We have a “tote” in the garage with a heat lamp and supplies for when (if) this works. If it doesn’t, we’re going to get more eggs from our neighbors (they have LOTS of chickens!), and try again. If that doesn’t work, we’re going to loan them our incubator. They’re chicken experts. We are NOT. Then, they can teach us how to do it right. We’re concerned that the incubator’s temperature was too low one morning (98 degrees). We’ll keep you all updated!
The neighbor’s rooster is Randy’s father so, hopefully, we can keep that beautiful bloodline going. 🙂
If you want to hear us more details about our latest chicken tragedy, tune in to EPISODE 8 of the WritersWeekly Podcast.
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I am so sorry to hear about your loss of Randy the Rooster and Miss Hen.
I applaud your efforts with the incubator! My mother has geese and I have thought about trying an incubator with those eggs several times. Several of my acquaintances, also chicken ladies, do use incubators and the humidity is a great Factor in combination with turning the eggs. My grandmother had chickens and I often watch the mother hens rotating the eggs underneath them. They would take their feet and rotate the eggs without actually leaving the nest.
Most people don’t realize how attached you can get to chickens. I have not had good luck over the past few years and have lost probably 30 hens and roosters combined. I purchased six Easter egger pullets last April, and possums or other such predators caught the five hens just as they were ready to start laying. (I have never been able to find the hole in the hen house where they were able to enter.) Gregory Pecker, the Rooster, was featured in at least a couple of Reddit posts and had many acclaims to his handsome feathers. A possum caught Gregory on April 6th, 2025. The nature of the demise indicates the WHO DID IT!
BEST OF LUCK with your new chicks!
Deb