# Anybody have any experience hatching chicks?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-have-any-experience-hatching-chicks/245228>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 15, 2004, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-have-any-experience-hatching-chicks/245228 "2004-05-15T04:26:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chotii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Chotii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chotii)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2004, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-have-any-experience-hatching-chicks/245228/1 "2004-05-15T04:26:57Z")

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I have made an incubator following the instructions for [‘Matilda the Electric Hen’](http://www.afn.org/~poultry/matilda.htm) 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.