AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Is having eggs in an eggs carton in the incubator just plain dumb?

Please don't guess on this one as potential chicken lives are at stake.

I have just done day 7 candling of selected eggs in my home-made incubator. I didn't do them all, because I only wanted a quick look. I'll do them all after work tonight when the room is darker.

To see the incubator, go to http://www.greenaus.com/chooks/incubator_inside.jpg

You will see that I have the eggs placed in egg cartons, tilted and small end down. The small end is always within the confines of the egg carton.

I am concerned about whether that has lead to the small end being "insulated" by the egg carton, maintaining a lower temperature.

That's fine if the embryo is the only thing that has to maintain about 37.7. Is it the only thing?

The ones that I could see into each appeared to have an embryo that was about 1.5 - 2.0 cm long. Spidering was still evident.

But...

Towards the bottom, there was what I would call "pooling". You could see where a different type of content (thicker or thinner, I don't know, but perhaps yellowed) had sat between each turn.

Until day 5 I had only turned 180 degrees twice daily. After that I marked the 3rd and 4th sides and now turn in order 1,2,3,4. 90 degrees, 180, 90, 180

Imagine if you can; you carefully cut off the big end of an egg then drained everything out. Now, imagine you put a small amount of water with food colouring or dye in it. Tilt a little to the left for 6 hours. Tilt to the right for six hours. Pour out the dyed water. The marks in the bottom are what I see. Sometimes only one side, sometimes both. They looked a little like air sacs, but that is very unlikely.

Do these "pooling" marks appear in everyone's eggs, or just mine.


Charles

The short answer, its not dumb it’s just not a good idea, the eggs need consistent temp & humidity over the entire surface of the shell and using an egg carton will prevent this. You need to use a perforated holder such as sterilised wire or plastic is better. The “Pooling” could in fact be “Blood rings” which is caused by one or all of the following: Improper Storage, Improper Incubation Temp or Poor breeder nutrition. Also Eggs must be turned at least 4-6 times daily during the incubation period. Turning eggs twice daily may result in the embryo sticking to the side of the shell. Eggs should always be turned an odd number of times per day when turned manually. This makes sure that the embryo does not go into the same position each night with the risk of it becoming stuck to the side of the shell and subsequently dying. The egg is a living organism and needs to breathe. Fresh air (oxygen) is absorbed through the entire shell surface (egg carton would prevent this) and stale air carbon monoxide and other gases are dispersed. It is extremely important that each day clean fresh air is allowed into the incubator in order to satisfy this requirement. This is achieved during manual turning, but only when opened 4-6 times or using a ventilation mechanisms.

Hope this helps

Thanks
P.A

Yes, it helps a lot.

Edit: There is also two photos available which I took at 2am of what I thought was "pooling".

http://www.greenaus.com/chooks/pooling.jpg

.

Hi Greenaus, the Photo on the right looks quite normal for 7 days, so your bator seems to be working quite well.




Thanks
P.A

Thanks

Hi Greenaus, and you have done a great job, it's not as easy job building a Bator, especially one that is successful.


Good job



Thanks
P.A

Yeah, well, either I don't know what the eggs are supposed to look like on day 12, or half the embryos have died.

There was quite a variety of things to see when I candled tonight.

One seemed quite clear, but there was a smaller dark area. (dead at 4-5 days maybe)

Some were a little hard to see into other than the air sac.

A couple seemed to be about half dark area and embryo.

I think my candling efforts may have killed some. Being spun around and around on top of a 1 cm hole over a floodlight bulb may be bad for the embryo. Is it?

Another question follows. As I'm rotating the eggs during candling, I sometimes see what appears to be blood (or something thick/dark...yolk maybe) swirling inside. Picture putting a couple of drops of food colouring in a slowly swirling cup of water.

Is that normal or bad?

Still no offensive smells coming from the eggs.

Hi Charles

When i candled my eggs a few weeks ago i was like you and wasn't sure at this stage so i googled egg candling and found these links very helpful..

http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html

http://www.minkhollow.ca/HatchingProgram/Candling/index.html

http://www.internationaldovesociety.com/RNColorPics/fertileeggs.htm

http://www.msichicago.org/exhibit/chick/egg.html

I too Googled candling last week and found the first one very helpful.

http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html

I have loaded them all and will check them out now.

Thanks very much for the help.

Actually, I think one has a blood spot. See http://shilala.homestead.com/files/egg3fix.jpg

I thought it was an eye that had stuck to the inside of the shell and it had been ripped out by gravity when I turned the egg. It happens to be about the same size as the eyes of the embryo in the broken egg the other night.

So, should I turf that egg? Wait until it smells? Or, leave it to maybe hatch?