Hatching Emu Eggs

[VansBantams]

I have a Hova-Bator 1602N that’s about two years old. I have a fan installed and one of the holes open for air exchange. I have had three emu eggs in there for three days with a temperature of 96.4 currently and yesterday it was 97-98. I lowered it because I read in an article that a lower temperature is better. My humidity is around 30-38%. My first egg started out at 544 grams and I weighed it yesterday and it was still 544. I think I may have to get a better scale. The second egg was 530 and now it’s 524 for the third day and the third egg was 544 and now it’s 542 as of yesterday. The eggs are being turned several times a day.

Is there any chance these eggs will hatch?

 

[Pyxis]

They could hatch. I haven't found that a lower temperature to be beneficial. As long as it's in the best range, which is about 96.5 to 97.5, the eggs should be fine. I personally use 97.5 for a day 50 hatch.

As for weight loss, treating the one egg that didn't lose weight as a scale error and assuming a day 50 hatch using 97.5 as the temperature, the second egg should have lost 4.77 grams and has lost 6, and the third egg should have lost 4.9 grams and has lost 2. So those figures disagree. One says your humidity is too high, and the other says it's too low. So that's either a scale error, or you need to tape the second egg because it's losing too much weight and lower the humidity so that the other egg can lose enough weight.

I would consider buying another scale to double check these figures, to be safe.

 

[VansBantams]

They could hatch. I haven't found that a lower temperature to be beneficial. As long as it's in the best range, which is about 96.5 to 97.5, the eggs should be fine. I personally use 97.5 for a day 50 hatch.

As for weight loss, treating the one egg that didn't lose weight as a scale error and assuming a day 50 hatch using 97.5 as the temperature, the second egg should have lost 4.77 grams and has lost 6, and the third egg should have lost 4.9 grams and has lost 2. So those figures disagree. One says your humidity is too high, and the other says it's too low. So that's either a scale error, or you need to tape the second egg because it's losing too much weight and lower the humidity so that the other egg can lose enough weight.

I would consider buying another scale to double check these figures, to be safe.

I agree that it must be a scale error for the one egg. I just weighed them today which is the third day and egg one is 542, egg two is 524 and egg three is 540. So now egg one is losing .6 grams and egg two is losing 2 grams and egg three is losing 1.3 grams.At times my temperature in my incubator drops to 94 and then the light goes on and then it goes to 96.4. I had tried having it at 97.5 yesterday but it kept going up to 98 and then dropping to 97.5. I read somewhere on a article that lower temperatures make the eggs hatch out later.

 

[Pyxis]

I agree that it must be a scale error for the one egg. I just weighed them today which is the third day and egg one is 542, egg two is 524 and egg three is 540. So now egg one is losing .6 grams and egg two is losing 2 grams and egg three is losing 1.3 grams.At times my temperature in my incubator drops to 94 and then the light goes on and then it goes to 96.4. I had tried having it at 97.5 yesterday but it kept going up to 98 and then dropping to 97.5. I read somewhere on a article that lower temperatures make the eggs hatch out later.

Yes, lower temperatures make the eggs hatch out later, that's true for every species, but that doesn't mean it's better for the chick. Think of it like this, we incubate chicken eggs at 99.5 for the them to hatch on day 21, because that's when they're supposed to hatch. We could incubate them at a slightly lower temperature and then they would hatch out later, but there's no point since there's no benefit to the chicks. It could, in fact, be detrimental.

Sorry about the temp swings, Styrofoam incubators aren't know for being super reliable, unfortunately. Can you set the temperature to 97 and see what that does? 94 is just very low. If you can get the temperature to hang out in a range of 96.5 to 97.5 that would be ideal. Have you tried also adding some heat sinks to help hold the temperature steady?

 

[VansBantams]

I thought lower temperatures weren’t very ideal either. They said that 95.5 degrees is close to the temperature that emus incubate in the wild.

I haven’t tried heat sinks yet. Are they just water in glass jars?

 

[Pyxis]

I thought lower temperatures weren’t very ideal either. They said that 95.5 degrees is close to the temperature that emus incubate in the wild.

I haven’t tried heat sinks yet. Are they just water in glass jars?

I have the Emu Farmer's Handbook, which was written by a couple that farmed emus for years and years, and they recommended that the temperature be kept between 96.5 and 97.5 for best results. I'm not sure anyone has tried sticking a thermometer under one of their sitting males to see what the temperature is under there, but maybe I'll try it sometime if I ever have a male on eggs

I use water bottles for heat sinks. Really anything that can hold heat will work. Sealed jars of water, water bottles like I use, even rocks will work.

 

[VansBantams]

I have the Emu Farmer's Handbook, which was written by a couple that farmed emus for years and years, and they recommended that the temperature be kept between 96.5 and 97.5 for best results. I'm not sure anyone has tried sticking a thermometer under one of their sitting males to see what the temperature is under there, but maybe I'll try it sometime if I ever have a male on eggs

I use water bottles for heat sinks. Really anything that can hold heat will work. Sealed jars of water, water bottles like I use, even rocks will work.

I’ll try using a water bottle. I have a glass jar but I can’t find a lid for it. Hopefully this works.

 

[VansBantams]

I have the Emu Farmer's Handbook, which was written by a couple that farmed emus for years and years, and they recommended that the temperature be kept between 96.5 and 97.5 for best results. I'm not sure anyone has tried sticking a thermometer under one of their sitting males to see what the temperature is under there, but maybe I'll try it sometime if I ever have a male on eggs

I use water bottles for heat sinks. Really anything that can hold heat will work. Sealed jars of water, water bottles like I use, even rocks will work.

The temperature stabilized around 97.5, I had to use baby food jars instead of plastic because the plastic was beginning to leave an odor. Due to daylight savings next weekend. My first turning is usually at 7:00 AM now and I was wondering whether I should do the turning at 8 when it’s daylight savings or stick to 7? I’m not sure if it really matters what time there turned because we already turn them several times a day.

 

[ChickenGuppy]

So I have a question, I was told to incubate emu eggs on 99.5 but just recently learned today it was supposed to be 97.5. I put them in on the evening of the 15th. So about 6 days and then turned it down to 97.5 today. I was freaking out a little but no sense in crying over it. But seriously though, I don't want it to run my holiday so going forward do I run a dry hatch with no humidity? No bad news please. If they hatch they hatch if they don't I'll just try it again later. Just give it to me proper going forward please. I'm an emu virgin. [email protected]

 

[Pyxis]

So I have a question, I was told to incubate emu eggs on 99.5 but just recently learned today it was supposed to be 97.5. I put them in on the evening of the 15th. So about 6 days and then turned it down to 97.5 today. I was freaking out a little but no sense in crying over it. But seriously though, I don't want it to run my holiday so going forward do I run a dry hatch with no humidity? No bad news please. If they hatch they hatch if they don't I'll just try it again later. Just give it to me proper going forward please. I'm an emu virgin. [email protected]

They may be okay with that temperature. I don't think it's so high that it would have necessarily killed the eggs. All you can do is wait and see.

On the humidity front, are you weighing the eggs to track moisture loss? That's the only way to tell for sure what humidity you should be using.