Candled today...

[arherp]

Out of nine eggs that I set, seven are developing. Woot!! These are all pure gray Africans that have been cooking about a week. Can't wait for my little strawberry crop weeders to come out!
Anyone else have a successful candling this week?

 

[pete55]

Congratulations

My Buff Dewlap female paired to our Grey male had their first 5 eggs infertile. Moved to their own pen and their next 4 are fertile

Just set another 6 eggs from them in the incubator so we'll know by Sunday

 

[arherp]

That's awesoem! Are these the Toulouse?

 

[pete55]

Yes our Dewlap Toulouse. First eggs we've had from our 2010 Buff female

Our other Buff female is also a 2010 bird but from a different bloodline but no eggs from her yet.

 

[MsMelvin]

We candled last weekend but could not see into the eggs any more...should have taken photos the week before as they were small enough in there to make them out. Definately three doing something!

Now they are dark but the air sak.

The eggs "feel" heavier....that's a good thing right?

Hatch date is 28th.

Can't wait!

 

[pete55]

The eggs will get progressively darker as they develop and the detail that can be seen in week 2 is lost. However you should be able to make out active blood vessels near the edge of the air cell. Active blood vessels indicate development is going ok (the vessels quickly 'wither' and break up if the embryo dies).

Not sure about feeling heavier although I've heard it before. The egg actually gets lighter during incubation and should finish with a 13-15% weight loss overall

 

[jack & mommy's duckies]

I've set almost 20 eggs from my africans.....just a few each day... I've had 7 that nothing happened with (but they were early, and their first eggs) now I have 7 more doing wonderfully...and the last few I don't know yet since it is too early to candle.

But the part that sucks is I forgot to write down the days i set them.....and i don't remember the hatch days.... duhhhh

but that will be ok...I write the days i collect them on and i set them the next day.... so i'll be close really close

 

[adrian]

I just want to stress, as I usually do, that you make sure your humidity isn't too high. As it was said, eggs lose weight during incubation. The air cells must be large enough. Goose eggs, in my experience, are especially sensitive to high humidity because it is so difficult for goslings to internally pip to begin with because of their long necks. Also, logic, despite the fact that people operate under the dogma that goose eggs ought to be incubated at high relative humidity, indicates that a thick shell results in slower moisture loss than a thin shell. Goose eggs have very thick shells. In my experience, very high humidity will result in very little moisture loss in goose eggs and subsequent drowning prior to internal pip. When hatching parrot eggs for instance, you learn that small, thin-shelled eggs are to be incubated at higher humidities because they lose moisture faster. Not because of size so much as egg shell density. In larger eggs, the humidity is best when higher because the moisture loss is not as rapid. But, goose eggs do have long incubation time, so there's got to be a sort of balance acquired. Low enough humidity to allow moisture loss to happen in such thick-shelled eggs... But high enough to prevent too much from occurring because of the long incubation period.

I'm really rambling right now, but just... Be careful that they do lose enough moisture because in my experience, the greatest cause of DIS embryos with goose eggs is excess humidity during incubation.

Good luck.

 

[pete55]

Well agree with what Adrian posted

The target weight loss of 12-15% is not easy, especially if you live in an area of high humidity. We run the forced air incubator dry and achieve a Relative Humidity of around 40%. We are using the guidelines for cooling the eggs for 10 minutes daily as we believe this helps water loss from the egg.

pete

 

[adrian]

Yes, actually I read a while back that cooling triggers early air cell growth after an egg is laid, so perhaps cooling really does help moisture loss. There really isn't a lot out there about incubating in that much depth, though, from what I understand.