Hatching and Incubation

When you hatch eggs, between five and ten percent of the animals will be lost before they grow to maturity. You should be prepared for this. However, this hobby can be very enjoyable both for education and recreation. Artificial incubation is the method by which most egg hatching occurs. Incubators are not always totally effective. Hence the loss mentioned above. However if your incubator is well managed, if your eggs are properly turned, and the temperature is well kept, you will see that between fifty percent, at worst, and eighty-five percent, at best, get hatched.

You should find one place to get all of your eggs. This will help you avoid illnesses. Other ways to avoid illness include washing your hands before and after handling the eggs and not keeping your eggs for than three days without getting them ready to be hatched.

Before you incubate your eggs, you should let them get up to room temperature slowly. Follow your incubator manual to get your incubator to the appropriate temperature and, after the eggs get to room temperature, begin incubating the eggs.

For the humidity in the incubator to be maintained you may need to add water. How much water will have to do with the kind of animal being hatched. Remember that the eggs contain living animals that need to take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Make sure the room where the incubator is located stays at an unchanging temperature.

Turning the eggs is very important. Some incubators have an egg turner on them. However, if yours does not, you may need to turn them manually.Different birds need to be incubated for different periods of time. Some take longer than others.

You should also create a place to take care of the hatched birds before they hatch.