Five Days Until Hatch Day...

 In two days, I will begin preparing the incubator for Hatch Day, which is called "lockdown", due to the rule that you aren't supposed to open the incubator from that particular day until the final chick hatches. Roughly 2 1/2 weeks ago, 28 eggs were placed inside for my very first experience with incubating eggs of any kind. I've candled them consistently, probably a little too much, but from the research I've done this is normal for many people who are incubating! Through the process, some of the eggs were removed due to infertility, failure to develop, and even a small crack. Though there are a few that are still too dark to see through while candling, I believe there are around 21 eggs that are developing normally. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next five days, because I've read about so many things going wrong towards the end. Out of all the eggs, 18 were shipped, which reduces their hatch rate to around 50%. However, at this point, I have removed 1-2 of the "bad eggs" from our own, and the others were from the shipped eggs, so right now my percentages appear to be above average. I'm very happy about this, but I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch!

 In this particular incubation period, the eggs that are developing the best, and have had the least amount of casualties were our own, and those of the Rhode Island Reds. Both of these are brown-shelled though, which makes them easier to observe when candling. This may be part of the problem as far as the blue-shelled eggs that I am still unsure about. Like I mentioned earlier, we lost 1-2 of our own, and there were 10 starting out. We received a total of 6 Rhode Island Reds, and all of them seem to be developing normally. I am only able to see through one of the Cream Legbar eggs to confirm a moving embryo. Out of the 6 Ameraucana eggs, there are four left, and I can confirm moving embryos in 3 of them. Before lockdown, I will attempt to determine if the eggs I have been unsure about are developing. If I can't tell, I will only leave them through lockdown if they do not have any signs of cracks or other odd features. Photos of candling on Day 18 (lockdown) will be posted later that day. It's amazing that I thought time would move so slow!