help me hatch in a LG incubator, emu eggs, temperature and humidity !!! OMG a mess

Hi, Im triyng to hatch 8 emu eggs, this is mindsuck!!! ok I have 2 lg incubator, i SET THEM AT JAN 24 as they are too big I didnt use te wire bottom so I put them at the floor, first I filled a glass jar, but my eggs are dropping weight, so i filled the water tray. My temperature at the mercury termometer that the lg has is 97. and 97.5 but at a digital one keeps reading lower. I do not whnow what to do, please help me hatch please !!!!

How much weight have they lost so far?

I modified my LG and it's holding temps much better (got the idea from foulman007).
I use the wire floor (there is shelf liner covering it in the picture) and so far have not had to add any water for the humidity. I do have several sealed jars of water in mine to act as heat sinks to help keep the temperature more stable.
I also keep a heavy towel over the top of the incubator since with the modifications the lid doesn't sit quite flush and I have a cat who loves to lay on top (and claws the styro if he gets half a chance.. the towel deters him and he's not interested in using the old bator as a scratching post).





what is your digital thermometer reading and where do you have it located in the incubator?
in the pic above mine is on the floor.. but it is actually sitting on top of one of the jars of water (I rearranged things a bit and moved it for a more accurate reading)

Another thing to consider for temperature swings is the location of the incubator itself.. is it in a place where it gets drafts or the temperature fluctuates a lot?

hi, thanks for all advise you gave me, so am I too late for the humidity modification? I will take all the water out then. well the fluctuations are as follows:
612 to 513 on a 7 day period
717 to 618
544 to 504
694 to 581
537 to 498
686 to 606

as im telling the weightscale I got the first number is different fron the second, mabe this is affecting me

the temp im taking it from 3 different points,bottom,middle and top, but the 3 are different in a huge way, one reads on bottom 95 its a digital one, then the middle one is a ercurium one that reads 97 and the other one reads 91, so theres 3 different temps, humidity is 50% on one with almost no water and 71% with water,but ths is the incubator with a lot ofwheight loss. so at this point im a little bit confussed. Thanks so much, Iwill tr to modify them

Pollitollito said:

hi, thanks for all advise you gave me, so am I too late for the humidity modification? I will take all the water out then. well the fluctuations are as follows:
612 to 513 on a 7 day period
717 to 618
544 to 504
694 to 581
537 to 498
686 to 606

as im telling the weightscale I got the first number is different fron the second, mabe this is affecting me

the temp im taking it from 3 different points,bottom,middle and top, but the 3 are different in a huge way, one reads on bottom 95 its a digital one, then the middle one is a ercurium one that reads 97 and the other one reads 91, so theres 3 different temps, humidity is 50% on one with almost no water and 71% with water,but ths is the incubator with a lot ofwheight loss. so at this point im a little bit confussed. Thanks so much, Iwill tr to modify them

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ignore the thermometer that came with the LG.. they have been known to be really off..
if your middle thermometer is accurate you should be ok with the temperature of 97

from what you have there it looks like the weight loss is as follows:
612 to 513 = 99 gram loss or 16.18%
717 to 618 = 99 grams lost or 13.8%
544 to 504 = 40 grams lost or 7.35%
694 to 581 = 113 grams lost or 16.28%
537 to 498 = 39 grams lost or 7.27%
686 to 606 = 80 grams lost or 11.66%

are you sure the scales was reading accurately?.. cause for some of those that's way too much weight loss in one week especially if your hygrometer was accurate

the only other thing I can think of to ask is what do the individual eggs look like?.. do some have more of the turquoise color showing that others?

That seems like an awful lot for an egg to loose in one week even in an really dry environment. My heaviest egg is projected to loose about 80 grams over 50 days with 33% humidity.

well, I think its a scale problem as the firs scale wasnt that accurate as the second one. So I will ignore this and take a second weight toda to see if I got an changes. The temp is ok. Te eggs all have the turquoise color exept for the hugest one, is more green dark than the rest.

Pollitollito said:

well, I think its a scale problem as the firs scale wasnt that accurate as the second one. So I will ignore this and take a second weight toda to see if I got an changes. The temp is ok. Te eggs all have the turquoise color exept for the hugest one, is more green dark than the rest.

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eggs that have a LOT of turquoise showing will lose weight faster.. so maybe group them according to how much they have (the ones with the most turquoise put in one incubator and put the others in the other one)..

also let us know what your hygrometers are reading with no water in the bator... my guess is that they are off
I'm in central texas and I'm running mine dry.. with you being in PR I am guessing your home humidity is a little bit higher than mine is

Hi and thanks for the advise, now the incubator running dry is at 50% humidity, outside humidity is 78% . Now the temp is balanced finally, funny fact I ran all the termometers between the ideal term for incubating emu as they are between 96 and 97.8 almost 98 degrees, all temps reads different but between that range. Huge question, does this changes this 7 day period afeected my hatching a lot?? I do not know if I should buy more eggs or wait for these ones to see what happens

I really have no idea since it was early on in the incubation period..
I checked the two books I have on emu incubation and they aren't really clear when it comes to your situation.

the only thing close I could find is from the emu farmers handbook
"Even if the temperature has been set correctly and weight loss is monitored to ensure correct humidity levels, there are still several additional factors that can cause an embryo to die in the egg. Here are some of them:
Unacceptable temperature fluctuations- (e.g. temperature shoots up above 100F and remains high for several hours before a faulty thermostat is detected: or there is a power failure and temperature drops to the 70's for several hours.)"

Thanks so much!!! I havent got any of those 2 so maybe Im lucky!!! I will let you all know the progress of the incubation, oh another thing, when I manually turn the eggs I do not feel them too hot like a little bit colder at the bottom than the top its this the way it works? Thanks again!!!!