Hatching eggs require . . .

What do fertile hatching eggs require to, well, hatch? Not too much, it turns out. They need to be kept at an even temperature so I put a little thermometer on top of the eggs and adjusted a 7 watt lightbulb with a small square of aluminum foil. They need a little humidity so I filled one of the legs of the incubator with water. And they need to be turned. At least three times a day. Really, that doesn't seem like such a huge commitment.

It turns out, though, that turning a hatching egg is a little more complicated than I originally thought. For starters, you have to mark the top and bottom of the eggs so that you're turning it as close to 180 degrees as you can each time.

When turning a fertile egg in the incubator, you also have to make sure to always keep the "big" end of the egg tilted up. That's fine as long as you can tell which end of the egg is "big." On one of my eggs it isn't so obvious. I've pretty much guessed, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for that little guy.

Besides determining the proper tilt, though, the hard part seems to be just scheduling the turns themselves. Today we were out for 12 hours at a special event. I turned the eggs this morning at 6am but didn't get the chance to turn them again until 7pm. It's important to turn them an odd number of times each day so that they don't spend consecutive nights on the same side, so I'll stay up as late as I can (probably around 10pm) and turn them again. Hope I don't end up with little lopsided chicks. :-)