It's A Waiting Game

These emu eggs have been stored in a non frost-free fridge until a batch of 20-25 are ready to incubate. They will sit for 12 hours to come to room temperature. Each is labelled with the hen #, date of lay and weight. That turquoise one will eventually be discarded. It does not have an outer dark green protective layer and will not develop properly (more). It will be incubated until its fertility can be determined.

The eggs are in the incubator at 97.5 degrees, 30% humidity and rotating side to side every two hours (more). Germicidal lights minimize bacterial growth on the shell. A schedule for each hatch is written on the door. Hatch 1 went in on February 9 and will be ready to move to the hatcher on March 30.  Each egg will be checked for predictable weight loss (more) to monitor the chick development and candled for fertility (future blog) at the 14 and 20 day marks. We are keeping a list of requests for empty egg shells on our website.   So.... it’s a waiting game now.