How Does Daily Cooling of Eggs Help??? Does It Increase Water Loss???

[pete55]

Hi Everybody

After starting a thread on incubation of Dewlap Toulouse it appears that some people (myself included) are finding it hard to achieve an adequate moisture loss from their eggs and this is resulting in dead in shell

From the literature and drawing on peoples experiences it appears that daily cooling of the egg from Day 4 to lockdown appears to increase hatchability and moisture loss. Certainly I have found this to be the case with my own eggs. The only theory I can think of is that as the egg rapidly loses heat to the cooler environment then this process also allows for a sudden increase in the loss of water molecules also. As warm air can carry more moisture Im assuming the egg is giving up heat and water at a rapid rate to the cooler (and lower humidity) air in the environment. Where I have read that cooling stimulates the embryo then this process also allows for increased gas exchange also and is beneficial to the developing chick.

Everybody's opinions and experiences would be very very welcome as this may help to resolve many cases of dead in shell. Come on folks lets get our experiences shared and see if we can use this forum to help improve hatch rates of our goslings

Pete

 

[pete55]

Anybody??? All opinions welcome

 

[Cottage Rose]

Pete your theory sounds logical and the information greatly appreciated.

I'm taking notes!
Artificial incubation is often a daunting task.

 

[pete55]

Thank you for your input CottageRose, its much appreciated

Pete

 

[cracking up]

I've always read that if you rinse in cold water it will draw water into the shell so I guess water a little warmer than the egg will draw moisture out? I use a squirt bottle with warm water. Seems to work.

 

[Cottage Rose]

How long is everybody cooling eggs daily and how much water are your spraying?

 

[gofasterstripe]

I was cooling my eggs 3 times a day when I turned them until someone said to stop cooling since I had a fan assisted bator. So I stopped cooling and I just sprayed untill the top of the egg was wet and dripping down the side. Then the last few days I ran my humidity at around 25% to get the air sacs bigger for lockdown. I kept an eye on them come lockdown day but the day after 1 egg pipped and I locked down then. I upped my humidity and now the hygrometer is blank with to much so Im now in a guessing game and adding a bit of water to my fac ecloth tru the air vent about every 6 hours or so. Ive had 4 pipped in less than 24 hours and 2 are half zipped already

 

[Jenifer Kraus]

MY incubator is a chest freezer and I do hand turn them, every 8 hours . The only cooling down they get is when I open the top to turn them. I run the humidity 70% the whole time . I never spray until the the end because I have to turn the eggs that are from another setting . Temp runs 99 to 99.5 and my first hatch of 13 had no trouble and not a single help out. All healthy . Second group was larger and did the same thing. I do watch air cells very closely and this year was outstanding.

 

[ghulst]

With a push from Cottage Rose I will relate a few of my experiances of incubating goose eggs. In the 60's I raised emdens. I tryed hatching in a still air incubater with no luck. Then I started using leghorn chicken broodies. My dad at the time had a large flock and I could get a steady supply of broodies. Would put 4 eggs under a hen. would dip them in warm water the last 3 days. I am not sure if that was even required. They hatched out nice fluffy goslings. Used some of the broodies for 2 hatches if I din't have fresh. I hatched 36 one year.
In the 1980's I raised white chinese.With no supply of broodes a freind and I decided make our own breed for use as broodies. We crossed a silkie cock with his gray leghorns. Wow did that work. The hens would lay good and were always broodie. Would have broodies when we needed them whick was early in the year. Never keep the silkie feathered hens because the eggs wouldn't hatch in cold weather.
At this time I am retired and have a parttime job working at Townline Hatchery. We hatch goose eggs from our flock of breeders in the same incubaters that we hatch our chicks in without any special spraying.
I now only have a 14 year old white china goose but have some goslings ordered for this spring from a freind. I am tooling with again crossing some of my ISA Browns with a silkie rooster to make a very good broodie. I want to relive my younger years.

 

[debby730]

New at hatching geese. I hatched 17 out of 25 eggs.. never cooled them for 30 minutes a day. I had read about it but hubby said I didn't need to do that