How to Use an Egg Incubator

Before you set eggs

1. Place the incubator in a room that stays steady, ideally 20–27 °C, away from windows, direct sun and draughts, on a level surface.
2. Clean it. Wipe the inside and trays with a mild disinfectant and let it dry.
3. Run it empty for 24 hours. Set 37.5 °C, fill the water and check that temperature and humidity hold steady. Check against a separate thermometer and hygrometer.

Choosing and loading eggs

4. Use good hatching eggs. Clean, uncracked, normal-shaped eggs from healthy birds with a rooster, no more than 7 days old, stored pointy end down at about 13–18 °C.
5. Let eggs warm up to room temperature for a few hours so condensation does not form on the shells.
6. Load them pointy end down (or on their sides, depending on the tray), and write the set date down. Use our hatch date calculator to get candling, lockdown and hatch dates.

Days 1 to 18: incubation

7. Hold 37.5 °C and 45–55 % humidity for chicken eggs. The temperature drops when you load cold eggs; let it recover by itself rather than turning it up. Settings for other species are in the temperature and humidity guide.
8. Turn the eggs. An automatic incubator does this for you; check the trays tilt. See turning eggs.
9. Candle on day 7 and day 14 and remove clear and dead eggs. See how to candle eggs.

Days 18 to 21: lockdown and hatch

10. Lockdown on day 18: stop turning, lay eggs flat in the hatching tray, raise humidity to 65–75 % and keep the door closed until the hatch is over. Chicks pip around day 20 and hatch on day 21. Leave them in the incubator until they are dry and fluffy, then move them to a brooder. See what to do after hatching.

Clean and disinfect the incubator after every hatch.