Emu Hatch-a-long 2012

[yinepu]

Quote:

24 Bantam Frizzle X (possibly) Silkie

12 Silkie X
4 Silkie X Ameracauna (one survived shipping)
4 Buff Laced or Gold Laced LF Brahma X Bantam Frizzle Cochin / Silkie
2 green Silkie / Cochin / Brahma
2 mystery eggs
4 older, end of season Sebastopol eggs (probably infertile.. but I can't complain since they were free)
and from another source.. 7 Toulouse eggs

I still have 6+ Mandarin, 6+ Bresse, 20+ Euskal Oiloa, 18 Ancona duck, and 6+ Dorking eggs that should be here eventually (in transit).. course I may have forgotten a few.. lol.. I need to check my list! And that's not counting the eggs already in the incubators
By the way... SE.. they will all be hand turned.. 5 times a day... yeah... i need a life....

Holy cow!

You're going to busy haha

The eggs are so much lighter than emu eggs, it's going to be a lot less work, right?

the only plus is I can candle these!!

 

[Avie]

I found two eggs! I just got them on ebay and I'll get them later this week.

Hi Moonjelly! I think you, me and Yoda might have the latest eggs of this year's Hatch-a-long. Will we have the last chicks of the season????
Not that it's a contest or anything...

Wishing healthy chicks to everybody who's got 'em so far and everybody who's still waiting in anticipation.

 

[msheets]

Oh my Yinepu! I'm so jealous!!

 

[Yoda]

Saturday will be 7 days for my lonely egg in the bator, but so far no smells so that is good!

 

[Avie]

Saturday will be 7 days for my lonely egg in the bator, but so far no smells so that is good!

How's the weight on yours? Mine is going a bit slow. The average loss so far has been 1.44 g/ day, when it should be 1.50 g/day. I just moved it closer to the fan.

The other (older) egg is still right on track -- isn't that funny how two eggs can be so different?

It's weird turning them both. The older egg has 10 days to go. It's so much lighter and feels very "tippy" because it seems like all the weight is concentrated on one end. The younger egg feels like a rock in comparison !

 

[Avie]

I got my last 2 eggs today. I am really mad and gonna call Carole. She sent me 2 eggs one has a hole in it

I'm really glad you complained. I hope you don't mind, I sent her the picture of my damaged egg and a screen cap. of your picture. The damage on mine looked almost exactly the same -- an oval mark (smaller than yours). I think that convinced her it wasn't shipping damage.

Instead of a refund, I asked her if she had any materials she could send that I could use for teaching purposes (I want to lead a home school class on birds this summer). Feathers, eggshells, bones? She didn't have any emu bones but hesitantly asked if I'd be interested in a dead chick. I said yes

because I could use it to make an emu skeleton. So I've been reading up on how to skeletonize things. Kind of icky, but interesting. She is sending it frozen.

I sure hope this "chick-sickle" isn't the only emu chick I see this spring!!!

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
if you use dermestids.. be warned.. they tend to gnaw on the immature bone.. so you have to pull out the younger larvae for delicate things (yeah... I articulate skeletons plus clean skulls.. i have over 100 in my collection right now plus a few boxes of entire skeletons that I need to articulate.. coyote, fox, muskrat and an english mastiff)

if you macerate it you'll have to deal with trying to fit all those teeny bones back together too.. which is a royal pain in the behind on tiny critters

for whitening.. do NOT use bleach.. peroxide in combination with heat works better (just don't use any metal items with the peroxide or really bad things can happen).. and that's soak in peroxide.. let dry and apply heat after it's dry


I'll be articulating an adult emu skele later this summer (should have it done by fall) plus a baby I got from one of the locals.. once I'm done I'll post pics of them

I have several emu and rabbit skulls now that I need to finish (should have been done with them.. but I got lazy and left them in the de-greaser)..

plus several assorted dead animals in the freezer that I need to skin, de-flesh and then toss to my beetles

 

[Grassman 52]

Here is the results of my last weigh in:
I have 6 eggs that are 43 days old today and I could see 2 moving - Next set is 10 eggs 37 days old and 3 were active this morning. I don't like to leave them out very long just while I was taking the weights. I thought that seeing them move was the coolest thing going - this is my first time with EMU eggs and I hate that you can't candle to see what's going on.

Next weekend will put me in the hatch zone for the first batch and I can't wait

What's not listed on the weights is their position in the incubator - it looks like the top tray of eggs is losing weight to quickly and the bottom tray is slower (middle tray is perfect) - so I switched the position of those trays this morning - With 22 eggs out of 30 close to the range I am keeping the humidity at 40% and just moving tray location to balance out.


Age Set Date Egg # Location Starting Weight Target Actual Target
Eugene OR 13% 17%
43 8-Mar 3 617 548 552

527​

43 8-Mar 4 527 468 469

450​

43 8-Mar 5 538 478 469

459​

Auburn CA
43 8-Mar 7 569 505 509

486​

43 8-Mar 8 567 504 483

484​

43 8-Mar 10 515 457 441

440​

37 14-Mar 11 556 503 487

486​

37 14-Mar 12 592 535 521

518​

37 14-Mar 13 584 528 516

511​

37 14-Mar 14 581 525 532

508​

Sanford NC
37 14-Mar 15 544 492 479

476​

37 14-Mar 16 615 556 540

538​

37 14-Mar 17 639 578 575

559​

Canyon CA
37 14-Mar 18 570 515 506

498​

Salt Lake UT
37 14-Mar 19 553 500 503

483​

37 14-Mar 20 546 493 493

477​

31 20-Mar 21 530 487 485

474​

31 20-Mar 22 539 496 490

482​

Kansas
31 20-Mar 23 646 594 564

578​

31 20-Mar 24 637 586 577

570​

31 20-Mar 25 620 570 567

555​

31 20-Mar 26 609 560 551

545​

31 20-Mar 27 640 588 586

573​

31 20-Mar 28 611 562 526

547​

Sanford NC
30 21-Mar 29 552 509 474

496​

30 21-Mar 30 634 585 556

569​

30 21-Mar 31 528 487 468

474​

30 21-Mar 32 584 538 517

524​

30 21-Mar 33 453 418 388

407​

30 21-Mar 34 478 441 422

429​

 

[Grassman 52]

When I first decided that I wanted to try EMU eggs I posted questions about Incubators and egg turning - I purchased the EMU Farmers Hand Book Vol 1 on-line and read it, and I just purchased vol 2 and the incubation section is filled with great information.

It has complete sub-sections on using cabinet type incubators with turning instructions and rate and angle off turning eggs (and the reasons why).

I was also struggling with temp control and the book went into detail on air flow and how to correct problems - I incorporated all the suggestions and my temps and airflow are almost perfect.

If I get a good hatch rate, I will have that book to thank (along with the members that helped with my posts) - I highly recommend both books for new EMU owners.

It should be noted the vol 2 does not replace vol 1 - it builds on the knowledge from the first book and expands upon it.

 

[Yoda]

Ok here is the first week weight:

Start: 457 grams
Wk 1: 440 grams = 17 grams lost