Sebbies due Saturday -- Nothing yet!?

[adrian]

Regardless of how late it is, you need to treat today more like day 28 or even 27 for the egg because it will take just as long for the baby to get ready to hatch as it would if it were on time; perhaps even longer. Sounds to me like there wasn't enough moisture loss in your other egg. Hygrometers, in my experience, are rather inaccurate tools unless properly calibrated and tested. 55%, for all you know, could be 75%. I've had hygrometers that were 30% off or more. It is very dangerous with eggs. People suggest high humidity for geese but in my experience... Geese are usually hard to hatch because people keep their relative humidity too high, which does not occur in nature. Just my thoughts. I hope your gosling makes it. Remember, patience.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
I agree, I've seen posts on here and know people locally that use cabinet incubators. Most people (on here and locally) who hatch goose eggs in their cabinet incubators don't give the goose eggs any special treatment. I've recently started doing this with ducks and I'm having much better results. They can hatch perfectly at 35% humidity just like the chicken eggs do. (35% is not intentional, but I've had several hatch in my 'incubator' rather than the hatcher. The incubator is kept between 25% and 35% humidity).

 

[adrian]

Quote:
I agree, I've seen posts on here and know people locally that use cabinet incubators. Most people (on here and locally) who hatch goose eggs in their cabinet incubators don't give the goose eggs any special treatment. I've recently started doing this with ducks and I'm having much better results. They can hatch perfectly at 35% humidity just like the chicken eggs do. (35% is not intentional, but I've had several hatch in my 'incubator' rather than the hatcher. The incubator is kept between 25% and 35% humidity).

I've recently been giving some thought to humidity and its role in incubation... And I believe that most very experienced hatchers, generally those that handle exotics because they are far more expensive and valuable and thus, more thought is given to the process of incubation, consider humidity to be a value based primarily upon the thickness of an egg's shell. I think, generally, a goose egg has many characteristics that sort of create a balance... Difficult to explain, but when you think about it, a goose egg is a large egg, which means there is more moisture to be lost. The egg shell is also very much thicker, which means moisture is not as rapidly lost through the pores of the egg. But the incubation period is longer, allowing for greater moisture loss. Put it all together and, at a modest humidity, it should all balance out to create a weight loss percentage similar to those seen in other species, like chickens... I think it would probably be best for people who are incubating small quantities of valuable eggs (whether valuable in terms of actual cost or valuable to the individual) should invest in a scale and just weigh their eggs throughout the incubation process. I had really good luck doing this once for myself. But I find that RH% varies even from one goose breed to the next. Tried to incubate a wild breed of goose with domestics and the wild ones had very much trouble. I believe their shells were significantly thicker. So, it varies. It's complicated. But, better humidity be lower than higher.

 

[Lamar Estate]

WHY do books suggest such a high humidity percentage?

 

[pete55]

I have no idea why books state this but things do change as more and more knowledge becomes available. However, there are many goose books that state weight loss (through moisture) is a problem for goose eggs, especially the difficult to hatch ones eg Dewlap Toulouse. I believe both C Ashton and D Holderread have addressed the increasing size of the air cell (and therefore weight loss) in their books.

Pete

 

[Cottage Rose]

I agree on the lower humidity during the incubation process.
I keep mine around 25 - 35% until the last 3 days
then I jack it up to 80%.
I have better hatching ease with the higher humidty at the end.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Honestly, it makes sense. Just because the egg is brooded by goose or duck doesn't mean it would have higher humidity. Sure, it would probably get 'wet' more than a chicken's egg, but I had a rouen duck that hatched 9 ducklings last year and I never saw her bathe while she was incubating the eggs. She would come off, get a drink and some food, bite a chicken, then return to her nest

Plus there are so many people who use cabinet incubators that say they don't do anything special for waterfowl eggs. They have good hatches too.

 

[adrian]

I agree that hatching humidity should be nice and high for goose eggs because their membranes tend to be rather tough and thick, but lower incubation humidity is good. I've never seen 25-35% but I would trust your experience, Cottage Rose. Next time I hatch out some geese I will try for even lower RH%. Last hatch I aimed for about 50% because it was experimental, and 80% for hatch. Everything went very smoothly but they probably could have lost even more weight and been fine.