I have made an incubator following the instructions for ‘Matilda the Electric Hen’ and today is day 4 since I put a half dozen farm-fresh, fertile eggs inside. It seems to be holding a more or less steady 100F, and when I ‘candle’ the eggs with a good flashlight, I think I see an increasingly-dark network of blood vessels on the yolk through the shell of 2 of them (two eggs are brown-shelled and I cannot see anything; one egg is cracked and I’m pretty sure it’s a loss, and I’m not sure about the other one).
Is it true that I should turn the thing off/let it cool off for an hour a day to simulate the hen getting off the nest?
Should I mist the shells? I have a cup of water inside the incubator for humidity.
Is turning once a day adequate, or is there any harm in me turning/adjusting them every time I go out to check the temperature?
I think it’d be really cool if any of these hatched into healthy chicks.