Questions, questions.

Sylviaanne

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1. I was just told by someone that she doesn't check for air sacks before putting the eggs in an incubator. Until this time, neither had I but I have been doing some reading and thought it might be needed to judge how the air sacks are growing. My problem is this: I put 36 eggs in the incubator but only 6 of them had air sacks and I'm not real sure about one of them. I played with my new flashlight yesterday and I'm going to put new batteries in it and recheck the air sacks on the 3rd day of incubation. So, this question is: Does it mean anything that I can't see air sacks in some of the eggs before incubation starts?

2. I have 2 double yolk duck eggs and I am wondering if it is bad that the yolks in one egg seem to be free swimming? They don't float completely to the other side if I rotate the egg half way over but they do have plenty of movement. The yolks in the other one seem to slosh from side to side where they are, so is this a bad sign? That they seem to be attached in one place?

3. I just put the 36 eggs in my still air incubator, at what point does humidity become imperative? Right now it reads 29% and the temp is 100. The first time I used this incubator I didn't have a way to measure the humidity but kept the troughs full and wet sponges in it. I don't remember how many chicks hatched but it wasn't many. The last time I used it, I had 32 eggs in it and some of them had been pre set by a hen. They hatched after 2 weeks in the incubator. This time I had a temp/humidity meter from Walmart in it. I had a rough time trying to get the temp and humidity down after I put the eggs in. The temp kept running up to 102 and the humidity kept running up to 50% or higher. It finally settled to 99 temp and right around 40-43% humidity. Out of those 32 eggs I got 22 chicks (pre set) and 4 ducks. I might have gotten more but I misunderstood how to test them to see if there were living babies in the shells. No, I did not do and eggtopsy because I don't think I could have stood knowing that I took them out too early and killed them. I did let them go over the incubation time by 3 days.

I have plenty more questions but I need to write them down when I think of them because I seem to have swiss cheese for a memory. I really hate posting a new thread for one question. Thanks for any help, Sylvia
 
2. I have 2 double yolk duck eggs and I am wondering if it is bad that the yolks in one egg seem to be free swimming? They don't float completely to the other side if I rotate the egg half way over but they do have plenty of movement. The yolks in the other one seem to slosh from side to side where they are, so is this a bad sign? That they seem to be attached in one place?
I would not incubate double yolkers as it almost always results in failure. They can develop but not hatch, as only one of the fetuses will be at the end with the air cell. The one at the other end will suffocate and die, but even the one at the end with the air cell will have a difficult time hatching because they need to be able to brace against the first shell in order to turn and zip. When there is a twin in the egg, they are pushing against the soft, spongy surface of the dead twin, and are unable to turn to zip. There is a documented case of twins hatching live from a chicken egg, (documented on YouTube) but the woman had to zip and hatch them herself - they were unable to hatch unassisted. Assisting is a delicate procedure and chicks/ducklings etc often don't do as well after hatch, when they haven't gone through the hatch by themselves.

Quote:
Humidity is most critical in the first 7 days for property air cell development.
 
What would be the optimum humidity in the first 7 days? Thank for the information. I really appreciate it. Sylvia
 
It seems to vary according to your own personal conditions. For example, someone in the Pacific NW, where it is very humid, might have good results at one setting, while someone in Phoenix, with the same setting, would have consistently poor results. So to some extent, it is a matter of figuring out what works in your particular setting. As a baseline.....I incubate from days 1-18 at 45% and then up it to 65% for hatch.
 

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