I have added a Poultry Incubation Chart to the templates for my homesteading binder which is useful tool to help you with hatching the eggs of chickens, turkeys, and ducks and thought I’d share it with you!
I have found the most difficult part of incubating eggs (besides the children fidgeting with the thermostat) is keeping track of whether the eggs have been turned or not. Once I made the chart, things went much more smoothly.
How to Use the Incubation Chart
To use the chart, determine the “due date” of your chicks, poults, or ducklings by looking at the “Incubation Period” reference at the bottom. Notate the estimated hatch date next to the type of poultry you’ll be hatching.
• Fill in the dates beginning at the first day of incubation.
•Eggs should be turned at least twice a day, but more often is better. We try to turn them 4 times a day.
•While there are specific times noted, we pretty much just do it at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and right before bed time. It’s not really important to turn them right on time so long as the turns are happening several times a day.
•Make sure to use a permanent marker to make a mark on one side of the egg. That will help you to get a full turn and keep all of the eggs even.
•The last three days before hatching, the eggs should no longer be turned. This is so that the chicks can get settled into a good position for hatching. That is why those days are “X’ed” out. I left a slash next to the “x” for days 20-22 so that there is still a place to check off a turn if you are hatching turkeys or ducks.
{Click here to download and customize your printable incubation chart.}
links not showing chart
Sorry Charles. It’s a google doc and is showing up when I click on it- even after I sign out of google. It does look like the link is not formatted right though. I’ll fix it and you can try it again. Let me know if it still doesn’t work.