How incubation of chicken eggs should take place

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If you are planning to start a broiler business, incubating chicken eggs is the only way to get the required number of young birds on a monthly basis. No hens are required to artificially hatch chicks. The main task of the farmer is to create the right microclimate in the incubator.

Incubation of chicken eggs

What you need to know for successful incubation

Many aspiring poultry farmers think that it is enough to buy incubator, bring it to the house, put eggs there, and after a while the chicks will hatch, grow into healthy and beautiful chickens, as a result, it will be enough just to sell them and enjoy the wealth.

But this does not happen, in order to raise a viable young growth, certain skills and a theoretical knowledge base are needed. At each stage of incubation (there are four in total), unforeseen problems can arise, as a result of which the embryos die before they can turn into a bird.

Breeding chickens even in a domestic incubator is a complex technological process in which the key role is played by the temperature regime:

• If the incubation climate is warmer than expected, the embryos will begin to develop faster than usual, all chicks in the brood will turn out to be unnaturally small in size, in addition, many will have the presence of an umbilical cord that has not yet had time to overgrow. Having managed to reduce the supply of heat in time, the situation can be saved.
• If it is too cold in the incubator, the chicks will hatch the next day after the scheduled date. The mobility of frozen chicks will be significantly lower than that of their counterparts hatched under normal conditions. But as soon as they warm up, everything will return to normal.

Very strong overheating or cooling of eggs can lead to the death of embryos, so you need to constantly monitor the temperature in the container and adjust it if necessary.

Humidity is also important:

• If the air in the chamber is dry, biting will occur earlier than the prescribed time, which will cause the chicks to weigh less than usual.
• If the humidity is high, the emergence of chicks into the world, on the contrary, will be slightly delayed. And if at the same time it is also cold in the chamber, there is a risk that the hatched chicks will stick to the shell with their skin and beaks.

When artificially rearing chickens at home, it should be borne in mind that household incubators cannot always maintain the same temperature in all parts of the container, even if the instructions for the device contain different information. In order for all embryos to develop evenly, the order of the eggs in the tray is periodically changed.

To provide the necessary humidity in the incubator, you can install trays with water at room temperature in it.If the incubation air becomes humid enough, simply covering the vessel will be sufficient to lower this setting when necessary, so you can always slide the lid slightly to the side or remove it completely.

The optimum humidity for small appliances used at home is 50-65%. Its excessive increase is often accompanied by a low air temperature, and when this indicator decreases, the air in the container, on the contrary, is excessively warm.

Requirements for incubated eggs

Incubation of goose or chicken eggs should be done only from the best samples, which should be selected and stored according to special recommendations.

Shell mass and appearance

At home, you need to take a scale and find out the mass of each egg. When breeding broiler chickens, this indicator is not the most important, but if possible, these features should also be taken into account.

But you need to look very closely at the shell. It will not work to hatch healthy chicks in an incubator if the eggs are initially with a lot of light and dark streaks on the outer surface. As a rule, this happens if the laying hens are fed with a low-quality product.

Defects identified after ovoscopy

A universal way to test chicken eggs is to illuminate them with an ovoscope. If you do not want to spend money on purchasing a device, you can easily do it yourself from improvised means. There are many articles on the net, photos and videos showing the technology ovoscope creation.

With the help of a directional light beam, you can see where there is a growth, a cavity, a crack and unwanted inclusions in the egg. Even one detected defect indicates that the source material cannot be incubated:

• If you place a cracked egg in a container, the bird will not grow out of it, since the material will lose all moisture and the embryo will die very quickly.
• Specimens with a notch on the shell will lead to about the same, but there is no need to rush to discard them: you can try to get rid of the defect with the help of starch glue.
• The embryo develops inadequately and in an egg with a deformed shell.

The ovoscope can show the state of the air chamber, indicating the freshness of the original product. In the light, the camera looks like a dark spot not far from the blunt side of the egg, it stands out strongly against the background of the rest of the contents:

• if the chamber is small, the product is fresh,
• if the stain is large, the product is stale.

In the second case, the eggs are not suitable for incubation, as the embryos in them will develop very slowly.

During the transillumination, the eggs need to be twisted from all sides. If it became noticeable that the yolk is sharply shifted either to the blunt or to the sharp end, it means that the cord (chalaz) holding it is torn and this specimen is not suitable.

How to disinfect

Before placing the product in the container, it should be thoroughly cleaned of dirt with a rag soaked in a manganese solution. Then the eggs must be disinfected.

Industrial processing is usually carried out with formaldehyde vapor. To do this, mix formaldehyde, water and potassium permanganate in equal proportions. To process one cubic meter, it is enough to take 30 ml of each substance.

The container with the solution is quickly placed in a special chamber, the selected eggs should already lie there. After a few seconds, as a result of a violent reaction, a corrosive gas, formaldehyde, will begin to evolve from the vessel. As a camera, you can use an ordinary wooden box, which has no cracks and closes very tightly. The procedure takes approximately 30 minutes.

This method is suitable if the farmer has a large production of young animals. If the farm uses a small household incubator, formaldehyde can be dispensed with by wet disinfection with a 30% aqueous solution of bleach.Immediately before laying the eggs in the incubator, you need to place them in the prepared disinfectant liquid for a few minutes.

How to store eggs for incubation

For storage, you need to put the material in the cells with the blunt side up. The room where the product is planned to be stored must be clean and cool (optimum temperature - 18 ° C). At the same time, the air humidity should be constantly maintained in the range of 80-85%. If long-term storage is required, it is better to lower the temperature slightly.

The maximum storage time for the starting material is 6 days after the laying hen has put it off. But fruits develop best in specimens that are no more than 2 days old.

How to properly lay eggs in an incubator

Each incubation always starts with loading the trays with starting material. It can be done at any time of the day, although most farmers prefer to do this in the late afternoon.

After taking out the eggs from a cool storage, it is imperative to place them in a warm place for 1-2 hours and only then transfer them to an incubator.

Bookmark scheme duck and chicken eggs:

• Very large specimens are laid first as chicks hatch later.
• after 6 hours a medium-sized product is laid.
• After another 6 hours, a line of small eggs.

If done correctly, the chicks will hatch at the same time. To simplify the process, it is best to select all medium sized eggs at once as starting material.

Incubation stages and temperature conditions

Before placing the product, each tray of the incubator must be heated to room temperature (25-27 ° C).

Incubation should take place in four stages:

• Stage 1 - period from 1 to 7 days,
• Stage 2 - period from 8 to 11 days,
• Stage 3 - the period from 12 days to the first squeak of the chicks that have not yet been born.
• Stage 4 - the period from the first squeak to biting.

Table of modes of incubation of chicken eggs at home.

The table clearly shows in what conditions the incubation of eggs should be carried out in order for the embryos to develop correctly. If you are afraid to forget something or miss an important date, you can create an electronic calendar in your phone and mark the time and days there for the necessary procedures.

First step

The first 3 stages need to keep the eggs at a temperature of 37.7 ° C and a humidity of 50% or a little more. On these days, eggs should be turned every 60 minutes (hens constantly do this in natural conditions).

It is very good if your incubator model has a built-in rotation function, if not, you need to open the container and carefully turn each egg. We must always try to comply with these simple rules and scrolling schedule in a timely manner. It is imperative to change the position of the eggs so that the embryos do not adhere to the walls of the eggs and do not die.

Periodically throughout the entire incubation period, you need ovoscopyto see if the embryo is developing properly. At the first transillumination, a well-developed circulatory system should be clearly visible, covering more than half of the yolk surface. The embryo itself is still hidden inside the plasma. If malformed eggs become noticeable or those in which the embryo is absent, it is necessary to remove them from the tray.

Second and third stages

From the second week, the next stage of incubation begins, these days the embryo needs the maximum volume of water. Too dry air has a detrimental effect on the development of future chicks. An embryo is already visible in the lumen in the egg, and allantois has closed at the blunt end.

On the days of the third stage, good air circulation should be ensured, which will promote active gas exchange and metabolism.We must continue to monitor the development of the fetus.

By this time, the embryo will fill almost all the space, with the exception of the air chamber, under which (under normal conditions) a third of the egg should be removed. At the end of the third period, the chicks will begin to squeak inside the egg and stretch towards its sharp end, trying to break through first the film of the air chamber, and then the shell itself.

Fourth stage

And finally, the last, fourth stage. At this time, the chicks are already ready to be born and your task is to help them in this. For easy biting, it is important to ensure that the temperature in the chamber is constantly maintained around 37.2 ° C, and the humidity is at least 78%. If the device has a ventilation function, you should turn it on twice a day, if not, you need to ventilate the incubator yourself (the process should take about 20 minutes). From day 18, the eggs do not need to be turned over, they should always lie on their sides at a good distance from each other.

Among other things, it is important to pay attention to how the chicks squeak. With normal development of the fetus, the sound from the shell should come out even, gentle, not too loud. If the chicks start screaming with all their might, then they are cold.

Before hatching, the chick begins to turn clockwise and peck at the shell. For healthy young animals, this work is not difficult, the shell breaks off in large pieces and after 3-4 pecking a break is formed in the egg and the chick is born. If you have never seen how chickens appear, you can watch videos on this topic, which can be found on the Internet as you like.

Incubation lasts an average of 3 weeks (21 days). Chicks from eggs simultaneously loaded into the device should hatch all on the same day with a difference from several minutes to several hours. After the chicks hatch, you need to carefully examine and select the bird.

Healthy chicks:

• strong strong legs,
• shiny fluff,
• bulging eyes,
• clear look,
• short beaks.

Pets should actively move and respond to extraneous sounds. It is important to carefully examine the bellies of the chicks, check the umbilical cord for softness. If a slight increase in the abdomen is noticeable, on which there are small dried blood clots near the umbilical cord, there is no need to rush to discard the broiler chick, in the future the situation may return to normal. The same applies to babies, whose feathers are not too perfect (pale, dull).

If the chicks are very weak, they must be killed immediately. You should not waste precious time on a bad brood, it is better to pay more attention to viable individuals. The hatched lumps should be kept in the incubator until they dry, then you need to move them to brooder (for these purposes, a box or cardboard box is suitable).

The main mistakes of poultry farmers during incubation, which can cause high mortality of young animals, are as follows:

• poor quality of the selected chicken eggs,
• wrong incubation mode,
• too long storage of the source material.

The main task of incubation is, taking into account all the subtleties, to create the right microclimate in which the development of embryos will take place in a timely and harmonious manner. Any, even fully automated, device requires constant monitoring at least 3 times a day. It should be remembered that even if all the parameters are set correctly, no one is insured against equipment malfunctions.