Ok so my magpie has been laying for a few weeks prior to the introduction of my khaki drake. 3 weeks after the drake's intro i have fertile eggs! I have a few quick questions: 1. I have multiple females but only this one laying eggs. One day there was no egg but the next day there were 2! Not buried or hidden so i thought anither female began laying also but haven't had 2 eggs since...could she have laid both overnight? 2. I have a homemade incubator i made from an old wine fridge. Reptile heat tape, internal fans, really nice...how critical are temp fluctuations from 98°-100°? Would 98° just cause incubation to be a bit longer but not have an impact on the health of the egg/embryo? Fire all answers, questions, and concerns at me please. As always, greatly appreciated, Darren
I hope all goes well that will be a fun mix to see. I have only hatched a couple of times but I had better success when I used a water jiggler to estimate the temperature inside the egg instead of the air temperature. I read about it in the hatching section of BYC. I couldn't find an actual toy jiggler so I took a flexible hot/cold pack used for keeping your cooler cold, folded it in half, secured it with a rubber band, and put the thermometer bulb in the middle. All this to say, the air temperature will fluctuate some but I think it is more important that the egg temperature doesn't fluctuate too much. The range you are talking about sounds good though. I hope all goes well!
