Incubator for Chicken Eggs: What It Needs to Do and Which to Buy

What an incubator for chicken eggs has to do

• Temperature: about 37.5 °C, steady day and night. Even a degree off for long periods hurts the hatch.
• Humidity: 45–55% for days 1–18, then 65–75% for the last three days (lockdown).
• Turning: several times a day for the first 18 days, so the embryo doesn't stick to the shell, then stop.
• Even airflow: a fan so eggs at the back hatch as well as eggs at the front.

Every IncubatorPro model does all four automatically. Full settings for other eggs are in the temperature and humidity chart.

The 21-day routine for chicken eggs

1. Before you set: use clean, fertile eggs no more than about 7 days old, stored cool and pointy end down. Run the incubator for a day first so it is stable.
2. Days 1–18: the incubator turns the eggs. Top up the water and check the display daily. Candle on about day 7 and day 14 to remove clear or stopped eggs (how to candle eggs).
3. Day 18 (lockdown): stop turning, raise humidity and keep the door closed.
4. Days 19–21: chicks pip and hatch. Leave them to dry and fluff up before moving them to a warm brooder (after hatching).

Step-by-step guide: how to use an incubator for chicken eggs. Problems? See why eggs don't hatch.

Which size incubator for chicken eggs?

A chicken batch takes 21 days, so you can run about 1.4 batches a month.

• 360 eggs: home flocks and first-time breeders.
• 720 to 1,056 eggs: selling a few hundred to about a thousand chicks a month.
• 2,000 eggs and up: commercial day-old chick sales. See commercial incubators.

Use the incubator size guide or the hatch date calculator to plan batches.

Hatching chicken eggs during load shedding

Short power cuts are usually survivable if you keep the door closed so the eggs hold their heat. For longer outages, plan a backup such as an inverter and battery or a generator. Read hatching during load shedding and check how much electricity an incubator uses to size your backup.