18 Emu Eggs and 3 Ostrich Eggs going for my first time... I am so "eggcited"!!!

[yinepu]

One thing that we must all keep in mind is that people have birds for different reasons:

I keep chickens, ducks, and geese - for the sale of eggs and meat. I have the land and the resources to breed and keep my birds.

So now I want to try Emu's purchased 34 eggs from 5 different sellers and will all be set by the end of the day tomorrow.

3 settings one week apart.


Now I have already lost 4 eggs to leaking and I clearly expect to lose at least half for one reason or another. My plans are to keep 6 birds to adults for breeding and to sell eggs - all others will be held for meat and oil. Now to get the 6 birds I require - I will need more chicks to cull down to the ones I want.

Back to my main point - not everyone will keep these birds for pets - they are considered livestock by some of us

Not to take the thread off subject,,

If you are raising the culls for meat and oil.. I hope you realize you won't get any decent amount of meat or oil off of them until they are at least a year old... so that means fencing / pens and feed for a solid year.. yes you can butcher one younger than that.. but all he'll give you is maybe enough meat for a stew (they only have decent meat on the legs and thighs.. plus the neck and a strip of meat along the spine... no breast meat to speak of though you can scrape it and add to the strip of meat down the spine for emu burger ... )

living in the old "emu meat production" land I have spoken to a lot of the old emu ranchers and they all agree that they aren't worth butchering until they are yearlings or older

 

[Grassman 52]

Fully understood - My plan is to hold all until 14 months or older - and yes fencing pens feed etc.... all planned for.

My point to the original thread poster - it seams like we all second guess what people are doing - maybe someone has actually thought through the whole process ahead of time.

 

[yinepu]

Fully understood - My plan is to hold all until 14 months or older - and yes fencing pens feed etc.... all planned for.

My point to the original thread poster - it seams like we all second guess what people are doing - maybe someone has actually thought through the whole process ahead of time.

lol.. ok.. i just wanted to make sure you knew when they would be old enough...
I know it's a touchy subject (especially here where most have them as pets).. but if it weren't for the meat industry many of us would never be able to own them at all..

 

[shanyalv]

Hello everyone,

Update. Day 35.

Egg weights are pretty much on track. I have some in a reptibator and the remainder in my wine-fridge-a-bator. We had a few days of semi lower temps ( 93-94 ish ) We had to take another one out this evening because my nose smelled something mucky and my husband cracked it open and it was bad.

I have gotten a few more that I have started afterwards and they are about right on track weight loss wise as well.

No wiggle today when we put them on a flat surface, even though I swear trying to see if one would move made me cross eyed.

However when we did the cool end warm end test all but two of them were safe when we tested and one happened to be that one that smelled off to me.

I tapped a few of them with my nails and my husband and I whistled ( drove the dogs nuts ) and we both kept hearing another sound back from the bator. I guess it's time for my husband to start doing his best country singer impressions in the office where one of the incubators is at.

20 ish more days to go and I am just waiting to see what happens with all of this. Sorry for not updating that often. Thanks for the PM's with so much helpful info as well.

 

[shanyalv]

I have rocking , rolling and wiggling going on. At least 5 of the eggs have some movement. ( watching my husband, daughter and I laying down to watch them was too funny)

I have a question about the tapping test. Some of them had the thunk thunk sound and a few others had a tink tink like china sound.. are those "tinks" possibly bad ?

We also had one rupture in the incubator. Thank goodness we got in and cleaned it up pretty quickly but needless to say what a mess that was. Then of course my dogs got a hold of the shells and I am finding little blue and white pieces everywhere now.

 

[Grassman 52]

How old are your eggs? My oldest ones are 21 days - April is going to be a long month

 

[yinepu]

I have rocking , rolling and wiggling going on. At least 5 of the eggs have some movement. ( watching my husband, daughter and I laying down to watch them was too funny)

I have a question about the tapping test. Some of them had the thunk thunk sound and a few others had a tink tink like china sound.. are those "tinks" possibly bad ?

We also had one rupture in the incubator. Thank goodness we got in and cleaned it up pretty quickly but needless to say what a mess that was. Then of course my dogs got a hold of the shells and I am finding little blue and white pieces everywhere now.

the THUNK sound means the egg has not "sounded" yet.. so if the egg is wiggling and you still hear the THUNK when you tap test it only means that the chick still has days to go and the membrane has not drawn down from the inside of the shell.. just keep turning those like you normally would

the TINK sound means that the membrane HAS pulled away from the inside of the shell.. stop turning the egg and let it roll to how it wants to lay.. then put it back in the bator as is (don't turn it any more)
Now having said that...With the TINK sound.. it CAN mean a rotten egg.. but it can also mean that the egg is almost ready to hatch. If the egg has not wiggled or peeped at you at this point it may very well be a bad egg. If it's early on in the incubation and the egg makes the TINK sound when tapped it IS a bad egg

You will have to be the judge of if the egg is bad or not.. for one that has NOT wiggled, is at the last few days of incubation but has sounded (the TINK sound) I leave it until incubation is over (unless it starts to stink).. then I drill a small hole in the air cell end and see if it is a bad egg or a lazy chick or just what has gone on in there.

 

[shanyalv]

Hi all.

I am at day 44 now. So pretty far into the incubation. I had a family member schedule a trip down to Cali for the week of my hatch ( semi family emergency ) so I won't be around when they are hatching but I will have my husband set up a cam for the hatch so that I can watch it all online while it happens. I have some random peeps coming from the eggs and lots of rocking so I am wondering if we should stop turning ?

I am also hatching out during these next few weeks Turkeys, Ducks, Bantams, Geese and whatever else may cross my path. I was just given some phesant eggs as well. I also just sent off with a teacher from a local school that I help with their incubation projects 150 assorted eggs for two schools. I end up always getting back all of the chicks that we send to the schools as most of the "city" parents are not too interested in the babies that they get afterwards.

Of course now my husband is wanting to help enable my "crazy" bird obsession with buying me a sportsman cabinet incubator but I am still on the fence about it at the moment. I do see though that I could get the larger trays and hatch out more emu eggs next season so I am getting a little more interested in the idea.

 

[yinepu]

Hi all.

I am at day 44 now. So pretty far into the incubation. I had a family member schedule a trip down to Cali for the week of my hatch ( semi family emergency ) so I won't be around when they are hatching but I will have my husband set up a cam for the hatch so that I can watch it all online while it happens. I have some random peeps coming from the eggs and lots of rocking so I am wondering if we should stop turning ?

I am also hatching out during these next few weeks Turkeys, Ducks, Bantams, Geese and whatever else may cross my path. I was just given some phesant eggs as well. I also just sent off with a teacher from a local school that I help with their incubation projects 150 assorted eggs for two schools. I end up always getting back all of the chicks that we send to the schools as most of the "city" parents are not too interested in the babies that they get afterwards.

Of course now my husband is wanting to help enable my "crazy" bird obsession with buying me a sportsman cabinet incubator but I am still on the fence about it at the moment. I do see though that I could get the larger trays and hatch out more emu eggs next season so I am getting a little more interested in the idea.

tap test the eggs.. if they are peeping they have already sounded.. rocking only means there is alive active chick in there

eggs that sound and peep should be allowed to roll to however they want to lay and placed back into the incubator that way.. and no longer turned


eggs that are rocking BUT HAVE NOT SOUNDED should be turned until they sound



sounding is when you tap on the egg with a solid piece of metal (i use a half inch spade tip drill bit ..tapping with the shaft part while holding onto the spade part)
if the egg makes a THUNK sound .. it has NOT sounded
once the sound changes to a higher pitch TINK (like tapping on fine porcelain or bone china) it has sounded

 

[shanyalv]

I am out of town but my husband put up the web cam of the emu babies hatching ... my net connection is terrible at my hotel but here you go.

http://skjm.com/icam/web/?h=df6961f...218107fe5d67d86fed1e892a743a5bf699001fca72ac3