Obtain Best Results From Incubation

The use of incubators is very common nowadays as the demand for day old chicks has grown tremendously of late. As a result, need for best practices to attain maximum benefits and avoid loses is not only important but also timely. 

First to ensure good results,egg selection is essential. Only select better eggs for incubation. Select eggs from breeders that are well developed, mature and are healthy. They should be compatible with their mates and must be fed with a complete breeder diet.

Always avoid excessively large eggs because they hatch poorly. Also ormit too small eggs as the produce small unhealthy chicks. Never select cracked eggs or those with thin shells since they have difficulty retaining moisture needed for proper chick development.

Incubate only clean eggs and do not wash dirty eggs or wipe eggs clean with a damp cloth because it removes the egg's protective coating and exposes it to entry of diseases causing organisms.

To start incubating, first know how to select,care and store eggs not forgetting best incubating conditions. Even before Incubation starts, the embryo inside the egg is developing and need proper care. Ensure you store eggs in a cool-humid area around 55degrees F temperature and 75percent relative humidity. 

Always store the eggs with the pointed end facing downwards. During storage period, alter egg positions periodically if not incubating within 4-6 days. Turn the eggs to a new position three times daily until placing in the incubator.

Don't store the eggs more than seven days since hatchability reduces reduces rapidly after the seventh day so only incubate eggs that are less than seven days old.

Allow cool eggs to warm slowly to room temperature before placing them in the incubator because abrupt warming causes moisture condensation on the egg shell that leads to reduced hatches.

In the incubator, ensure proper control of temperature, humidity and ventilation.

Best hatching is obtained if you keep the temperature at 100 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the entire incubation period. In case of a flactuation in the temperature just a half (1/2) degree F can be tolerated but any thing above 1degree will alter the hatchability. 

Check if the temperature sensor is accurate by using the normal clinical or a laboratory thermometer and compare the readings.Also ensure that the temperature is uniformly distributed across all the compatment or corners of the incubator.

Control humidity carefully to prevent unnecessary loss of egg moisture. Ventilation should also be well managed.

Remember when turning eggs during the first week of incubation, the developing embryo have delicate blood vessels that are easily damaged if shaken thus killing the embryo.