As Herringbone said, raising chicks inside is messy. While your winters are short, I think I would wait a little while, so that the chicks can be raised in an unheated shed rather than the garage once they are beyond the initial, more delicate stage, and can handle temperature swings. Do you also have an brooder set up, or can you make one? If you do a search for incubators, hatching eggs and or brooders/raising chicks, etc. on the forum, you should get lots of info - it comes up regularly in the spring. Also, not from experience, but from reading, homemade incubators are difficult to keep evenly warm and humid, so your rate of unhatched eggs will be higher than with a purpose built commercial incubator. I don't know how old your kids are, nor their temperaments, but can they simply accept that some of the eggs won't hatch, or is that going to cause problems? Can you start now and put up flyers or ask at the local feed store(s) if anyone has one they can lend you, maybe for a percentage of chicks, if it is a big one?

I tried hatching out quail eggs from an incubator several times mostly unsuccessfully. I did hear that humidity is important. Also I heard you should NOT touch the eggs with your hands or fingers. I had numerous chicks that couldn't make it out of the egg, and also numerous times I tried to help them out of the egg, and they were never healthy. I also had quit a number that hatched, but had deformed legs and couldn't walk right. It was very heartbreaking. I did have 2 occassions where the hen actually did hatch out a couple babies (out of many eggs) and they are the cutest things on earth. I call them bumblebees! Even the other quail in the pen would sit on them to keep them warm. I really enjoyed them. I don't have them anymore and do miss them.

The boxes were paired about 10 feet apart,they each began building nest and the both began laying eggs ,Then All of the sudden,The TRES decided they wanted the other box.They moved in and began laying more eggs with the Wren eggs,even carefully adding nesting material under the the Wren eggs.I noticed the Wren was going in the other box where the TRES used to be.I thought for sure they would throw out the TRES eggs and rebuild another nest,But they didn't,she began incubating the TRES eggs.The start of incubation was a week apart,so I couldn't just switch everything.I was surprised some of the eggs hatched.I did contact a rehaber as soon as I noticed what was going on.Since TRES feed in the air,there was no way each Species would have survived once fledging.Here is the surviving TRES from the video,He/She was pulled from the nest just before it was due to fledge.It was released a few weeks later by the rehaber.

I've been lucky enough to "host" chickadees for the last 6 years. The first year it was a little war between the bluebirds and the chickadees. The bluebirds have always, w/o a single exception, used the back yard nest box. They already had five eggs and incubation had started when the chickadees started nest building in a front yard box. The bluebirds were having "none of that" and constantly harassed them by going in and out of the dee nest box. I was advised to add a 1 1/8 or 1 /14th inch hole reducer to keep the bluebirds OUT and I did and things were fine for both the bluebirds and the dees. I have bluebirds in the back yard right now and the dees have laid their third egg today in the front yard box. So far, the bluebirds are not bothering the dee box but if they do I'll add the reducer again. I agree with Elly, do no disturb that nest. It's possible the dees will return or that they have and you've just missed seeing them. While they do incubate every day it's possible they have not started incubating yet. Most times females do start incubation the day before, day of or day after the last egg is laid but not 100% of the time so it's premature to think they won't return. I would recommend that you add a reducer to keep the bluebirds out of the box. If, after that, the chickadees don't come back for a full week then I'd remove the nest and eggs and the reducer. But, be sure you've had a chance to look at the box for a full hour before assuming it's been abandoned.