Incubating in my bra

[ChickenCanoe]

Posted this in my own thread but thought you all might be interested! This experiment happened in 2021

TLDR: It works, but not that well. (which we all knew by now lol)

This was my junior year of college, and I wanted to witness "the miracle of life" so I bought an incubator and some quail eggs. I was intrigued by the whole bracubation thing, so I gave it a try. It was clearly working, so I recruited 13 other women from my university to try to hatch eggs using bracubation.

I consulted with two ornithologists and a community agriculture professor to optimize conditions. The main consensus: if you do this, you must wrap the egg in a layer of breathable material, and change/clean it often. In my experiment, we used a piece of toilet paper or tissue and changed it every 8 hours or so. This kept our skin's oil from smothering the egg, kept it clean, and allowed it a small layer of air. Your body naturally turns the egg as you move positions, but some people tilted it every 8 hours or so.

Here are the results:

20 eggs total (some people had 2-3 eggs per bra)

10 eggs were dropped. This was the highest cause of mortality in the experiment, and it usually occurred while the person was switching out the tissue. All cracked eggs broke in the first 7 days.
1 egg cracked in a bra. Although this was the largest concern of participants, the only egg to crack in a bra did so while the person was skiing (face-palm moment)
2 eggs did not develop at all, and I suspect infertility
2 eggs developed blood rings around day 5 or 6.
5 eggs made it to hatch day, which was much later than the parallel eggs hatching in the incubator. Quail eggs hatch on day 18-21. On day 22...

2 eggs pipped
1 egg hatched all the way.

Honestly, it was a lot of work, very cool, and I don't regret it. I also went a little viral on tiktok which was fun.

When it comes down to it though, this is not the best way to hatch eggs. I had (not counting the broken eggs) a little over a 10% success rate, compared to the 60% success rate with the same batch of eggs in my cheap incubator.

If you really don't have another option, or just feel like doing a science experiment, let me know though, and I can DM you my research.

2 years later I'm considering trying it with chicken eggs. Don't know if I'll follow through, but if I do, you'll hear about it lol.

That was a great update. I gave some advice to the OP along the way.
I always assumed the problem would be low temperature throughout and judging by the fact the chick hatched late, that pretty much verifies it.
Instead of chicken eggs, next time try emu or ostrich eggs. LOL
Oh, that would take too long.

 

[sjhart18]

Well day 21 is here for me, there's a damp paper towel in my bra to keep humidity up, all that's left is to wait and hope!

 

[Ruby Rogue]

Well day 21 is here for me, there's a damp paper towel in my bra to keep humidity up, all that's left is to wait and hope!

Cool, do you know if it's alive?

 

[sjhart18]

Cool, do you know if it's alive?

She was still moving around when I candled for an internal pip this morning!

 

[Ruby Rogue]

She was still moving around when I candled for an internal pip this morning!

Cool

 

[ButtonHoarder]

She was still moving around when I candled for an internal pip this morning!

Any updates?

 

[sjhart18]

Any updates?

In a fun turn of events, I miscounted my days lol
Saturday was actually day 21, and today is day 23. It's hard to see into the egg rn but she wiggled a bit this morning so fingers crossed

 

[FeatherProfessor]

In a fun turn of events, I miscounted my days lol
Saturday was actually day 21, and today is day 23. It's hard to see into the egg rn but she wiggled a bit this morning so fingers crossed

How about now? I'm about to start this experiment myself and excited to hear!

 

[JCinNM]

And….? Please give us an update

 

[Kiki]

And….? Please give us an update

Guessing it ending with a dead chick in the egg:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/assisting-without-an-internal-pip.1574867/