Is Lighter Or Heavier Better?

[Prince and Pavo]

Hello! I am currently incubating two emu eggs. Today is day 36. I weighed them yesterday and saw both wiggling.
Here’s my dilemma: since this is my first time incubating emu eggs, I didn’t realize I was supposed to weigh them before I set them. So, I have no idea what they weighed when I got them. On top of that, the humidity has been fluctuating a lot, as my incubator lid must be tilted on the incubator base so that the humidity doesn’t get too high. Typically it stays right around 30%, but it’s ranged from 24% up to 40% Whenever I see it that low or high, I immediately adjust it so that it’s within the 25% to 35% range. Egg A weighed 17.18 ounces when I weighed it yesterday, and egg B weighed 17.61 (Small eggs??). My best idea/solution to this problem is to keep the humidity about what it’s been the whole time and weigh them again next week, telling me the average weight loss per week, and then I can calculate how much they weighed at the beginning. Is this a good idea or is there something better I can do? If there’s nothing else I can do, would it be better for the eggs to lose extra weight or less than would be ideal? In other words, should I keep the humidity at a lower percentage or higher since I’m not sure the beginning weights?

 

[Prince and Pavo]

Does anyone have any advice? Is weighing the eggs absolutely vital? Would it be safer to keep the humidity higher or lower?

 

[Isadora]

Tagging a couple people who can probably help
@Pyxis @ShannonsChimkens

 

[Pyxis]

Weighing the eggs is helpful when you're figuring out what works for your incubator, but it's not absolutely vital. Now that I've done a few seasons of emu eggs, I don't weigh mine. I know where the humidity should be and I keep it there. So weighing isn't super vital, it's just helpful.

Without a starting weight, weighing them now won't tell you much. I'd just park the humidity around 35% and see what happens.

If you really want to know their starting weight, there's a way you can calculate it using calipers. Using your method of trying to extrapolate from a week's weight loss unfortunately won't work too well, since eggs lose more and less weight per week at certain stages of incubation.

 

[Prince and Pavo]

Thank you so much for your reply! That is very good information, I’ll keep all that in mind. I really wish I had weighed them at the beginning…I should have been more prepared and informed . I’ll try my best to keep the humidity at 35%. I don’t think it should be too hard, because that’s what it’s been around most of the time (30-35%). Thanks again for your reply and great advice!! I really appreciate it!