2019 Emu Hatch-A-Long

[Pyxis]

well.......emu hatch over. shortly after my last post, went to do last turn. incubator unplugged, at the dc converter. did a turn 430 0r so before going to Easter dinner must have happened then. eggs ice cold (81 degrees) both ends the same temp. plugged in the incubator added new warm water bottles, i sure everything is dead but.....

They can take quite a bit of cooling. If they were alive, I'm sure they're still fine, though they might hatch a bit late.

 

[Roch]

I’m sorry for your loss! It sounds like they ate pine shavings, were they mostly on them & food could've mixed in? Pine shavings can also cause splay leg easily so use caution with it. I put mine on carpet.
I have found that TSC’s chick starter is almost identical to ratite starter, protein is 1% different & fat 0.5% off. Good luck on the eggs in there now!

Thanks Countrybumpkin, keeping my fingers cross... and what is TSC exactly, turkey chick starter? Have a nice day

 

[Burd]

Passed 4 weeks yesterday for incubation, things are moving along now a bit.

The egg I have that was losing a lot of weight (following what Pyxis said, it's likely it had issues developing it's outer shell) is slowing weight loss but is almost already at the amount it should have lost by the end of 52 days, so I don't think it's going to be much good (probably headed for somewhere around 20% weight loss despite being at a cooler temperature, having tape around it and having 2 of my water containers either side of it.

I never did quite flush the bad smell from the incubator completely but I think 1 other egg is possibly starting to develop a smell slightly though it seems to come and go which really baffles me, I'm keeping a close...nose(?)...on the situation regardless.

Including the above egg and the 2 which so far have had very little in the way of drama, they're on track to lose an average of 15.1% (though range from 13.5-17% despite being in the same place in the incubator and me swapping them) which I believe is good.

As mentioned before, 1 or 2 seem to be developing a tilt (surprisingly the heavy weight loser is tilting the most - not quite what I expected at this point though I suppose if it's developing and not much liquid is counter-balancing that may well be the case) but no wobbles in relation to sounds or from monitoring footage, though they are on a grated plastic surface so it would be quite the acrobat to wobble - I was thinking of putting a cardboard layer beneath the eggs so that they may move around more freely - does this sound like a reasonable and/or helpful idea for the eggs?

3 weeks today would be the earliest I'd expect a hatch (Day 50) but we shall see!

 

[countrybumpkin90]

Thanks Countrybumpkin, keeping my fingers cross... and what is TSC exactly, turkey chick starter? Have a nice day

Sorry I should’ve wrote it out. TSC stands for Tractor Supply Company, do you have one close to you? Other chick starters would probably work also, I use a ratite starter tag to compare

 

[matt swenson]

off topic..sorta of. with all the mess ups i've had this season and the most likely failure of my second hatch, i've been thinking. it sucks emus only lay eggs once a year. looked on the internet to see if there has been any effort with lights or temperature to get a second season outta of a female? anybody ever seen anything?? Also i've noticed that my goggle searches give me mainly US based results. i know this is going to make me sound like an old man. how does one get a more internationally batch f search results?? I'm thinking that there should be more emu information from Australia. i mean when i search google for anything emu...backyard chickens and these same threads keep coming up. it true this group is cool but noway we a the cutting edge of emu research. i know i should join the American emu association, but the membership fee just seems too high. your thoughts.

 

[Kalifornsky]

Strange you mention that Matt, I think one of my hens (Sterling?) is laying again after a period of no laying for about a month. She's paired up with a new mate and though I haven't actually seen anything, the two must be active. Either that, or another female has started to lay really late in the season, and it may be the one that produced the blondes/whites. The egg does look more like Sterling's, but I can't really know for sure. It's just confusing that there are eggs turning up again! The temperature has been up and down, so maybe that contributes.

As for search results, I'm getting more AU domain sites from using Bing AU.
https://www.bing.com/?cc=au

 

[Burd]

So we're at Day 30 now- any suggestions for the best ways (without buying anything) to test for life at all? I whistle to the eggs for about 20 seconds before deciding they've spent too long out of the incubator - should I spend a bit longer, try something else, or wait it out because I'm an impatient little child still!?

 

[FishMtFarm]

So we're at Day 30 now- any suggestions for the best ways (without buying anything) to test for life at all? I whistle to the eggs for about 20 seconds before deciding they've spent too long out of the incubator - should I spend a bit longer, try something else, or wait it out because I'm an impatient little child still!?

Oh yeah, I leave mine out for 3 to 5 minutes cause the cool down will make them wiggle and the fresh air is crucial. At this point you won’t hurt them. Also you will find that 30 days is a few days too early to test for wiggle in most cases. Usually day 35 is when we start to see it.

 

[matt swenson]

Drained my china sounding egg. Infertial. Smelled really bad. That egg was like half-way through the laying season. So now I'm thinking, no mating took place, or my male wasn't mature enough to get the job done. Stopped turning all of the eggs, gonna let them keep cooking in the incubator. I'll keep you posted. If nothing else I hope to post a final summary, for any first "egg year" emu pair.

 

[Burd]

Oh yeah, I leave mine out for 3 to 5 minutes cause the cool down will make them wiggle and the fresh air is crucial. At this point you won’t hurt them. Also you will find that 30 days is a few days too early to test for wiggle in most cases. Usually day 35 is when we start to see it.

Thanks so much for the info. Tried today (as I also wanted to test the "warmer at one end" theory) and 2 of them definitely had this after 5 or so minutes, another seemed warmer in the middle so mixed responses there. I'm counting down the days by minute!