Articles
Egg incubation & poultry keeping guides
Our guides for successful hatches and managing your flock: incubation calendars, candling, hatch rate and troubleshooting. Practical, hands-on advice.
Chicken egg incubation calendar
21 days, step by step: turning, candling, lockdown and hatching, with the right temperature and humidity.
How to calculate your hatch rate
The hatch rate and fertility rate formulas, with a concrete example and good benchmarks by species.
Why aren't my eggs hatching?
Fertility, temperature, humidity, turning, storage… the common causes of a failed hatch and how to fix them.
How many days do quail eggs take to hatch?
17 to 18 days for Japanese quail: day-by-day calendar, conditions and the quirks of small eggs.
Duck Egg Incubation Calendar: Day by Day
28 days for Pekin, 35 days for Muscovy: calendar, candling, lockdown and waterfowl specifics.
Goose Egg Incubation Calendar: Day by Day
28 to 30 days for geese: calendar, candling, lockdown, cooling and handling large eggs.
Turkey Egg Incubation Calendar: Day by Day
28 days for turkeys: day-by-day calendar, candling, lockdown and brooding poults.
Candling eggs: when and how to candle your eggs
Candle on day 7 then day 14 to spot fertile eggs and remove the clear ones.
Incubation temperature and humidity: setting your incubator
37.5 °C forced-air, 45 to 55% humidity, raised to 65 to 75% at lockdown.
Storing hatching eggs before incubation
Under 7 days, pointy end down, 12 to 15 °C, tilted daily, never washed.
Broody hen: how to succeed at natural incubation
Everything to hatch under a hen in 21 days.
How to track your hens' laying
What to record and how to spot a laying drop.
Avoiding inbreeding in a backyard flock
The risks of inbreeding and practical strategies.