How to properly lay chicken eggs in an incubator
Many purebred chickens lack the incubation instinct, so you need to use an incubator to increase the number of chickens. To get viable offspring, you need to know how to lay chicken eggs in an incubator. This unit speeds up the incubation process, therefore it is also suitable for those who want to significantly increase the number of chickens in their area in a short time. Today the device can be bought at any store with all instructions. But such instructions do not describe everything that can be useful in breeding chickens.
How to lay chicken eggs in an incubator
Selection of incubation material
Before laying chicken eggs in the incubator, you need to pick up the incubation material. To get offspring with a high survival rate, you need to take eggs that meet certain parameters.
- The shell should have a uniform texture, without roughness, layers, chips and microcracks. It is not recommended to take testicles with a lot of dirt; it is strictly forbidden to wash them with water before laying.
- Eggs for incubation should be medium in size. The larger the specimen, the higher the probability of embryo mortality. You should not lay small testicles, because the offspring will be small in size, and the females will begin to lay small eggs.
- Each testicle should be checked with an ovoscope.
- It is advisable to take incubation material from a young livestock, then the likelihood of the birth of chickens with various pathologies is significantly reduced.
The scales can be used to select eggs to set based on weight data. The optimal weight of chicken eggs for hatching incubator should be 50-53 g, duck eggs must weigh 70 g, goose - 120, quail - from 10 to 15 g. When laying eggs in an incubator, you must follow not only all the rules for choosing eggs, but also use the calendar, and also choose the optimal time of day.
Disinfect before laying eggs. On the outer surface of the shell there are many pathogenic microbes, and during incubation, they, together with the air, can enter the body of the embryo and cause disturbances in the development of internal organs. Formaldehyde vapor can be used to process a large batch of testicles. If there are few testicles, each should be wiped with a solution of potassium permanganate before laying. There is also a wet disinfection method, which involves placing the incubation material for 3 minutes in a 25-30% chlorine solution.
Optimal time frames
To grow a healthy population, it is necessary to create optimal conditions for chicks, as close as possible to natural ones, even before birth. To do this, it is best to choose the time period for laying eggs from the last days of February to the beginning of May. Often during this period, daylight hours are already increasing and lighting is improving.Experts strongly recommend not to lay the incubation material in the summer months.
The optimal time of day for laying. Afternoon, preferably closer than 18.00. Timing is calculated so that the first chick hatches in the morning. The appearance of chickens will be non-simultaneous, but on the other hand, the entire livestock will hatch by the evening. If you lay the incubation material in the morning, then the first chicks will begin to hatch in the evening and the process will continue all night, which, of course, is not at all convenient for the poultry farmer.
This time is optimal to keep the eggs at a certain temperature all night, which cannot be done during the day. Even a couple of degrees should not be allowed to jump. The air humidity should be between 70 and 80%. To comply with this condition, it is enough to expose the cassette holder in an open form in the room.
Stages of the incubation period
To be able to do everything right, you need to carefully study all stages of the process. There are only four of them.
- The first 7 days from the moment of laying the hatch, the internal organs are formed in the embryos. For different types of poultry, this period will be different: duck, turkey eggs - 8 days, goose - 9.
- At the second stage, the development of the skeleton begins. The end of the period corresponds to half of the entire incubation period. For chickens it is 11 days, for ducks and turkeys - 13, goose eggs reach this stage in 14 days. Throughout the entire time from the moment of laying the incubation material, it is necessary to constantly turn it over so that the embryos fully develop.
- The third stage is characterized by the development of down. Also at this stage, the chickens begin to make the first sounds in their life. Now it is not recommended to turn the eggs over, otherwise the embryo may be damaged.
- The last stage of development is the actual birth by pecking the shell.
It is necessary to calculate your time in such a way that you will be at home by the time the chicks hatch. It is very important to track the process itself. Feed the chicks immediately after birth.
Is it possible to lay cold incubation material
Before being placed in the incubator, chicken eggs are not collected all in one day; for some time they should be stored in a cool room, but not more than 10 days. It is important to remember that the incubation material must be prepared for an elevated temperature before placing it in the apparatus. When an egg is placed in a warm environment, it immediately becomes covered with condensation, which prevents oxygen from entering.
At the first stage of development, the embryo must receive a sufficient amount of oxygen from the external environment for full development. If the eggs are laid cold, then most chicks will die of suffocation in the first week. Correct laying implies preliminary preparation, that is, the night before placing the eggs in the incubator, they must be kept in a room with an air temperature of 25 ° C, protecting them from drafts and temperature drops, as well as with an air humidity of 70-80%.
Sequencing
Naturally, you will never be able to pick up for incubation the material is the same size. They will be different anyway, so it is important to know in what sequence they should be laid. The larger the testicle, the longer the embryo will develop.
In order for the appearance of chickens from testicles of different sizes to fall on day 1, it is necessary to lay in a certain order:
- the largest specimens are initially placed;
- after 4 hours, medium testicles are added;
- the smallest specimens are sent to the incubator last.
Most breeders insist that only one size of incubation material should be laid. However, if you follow all the above rules, then the chicks will appear on the same day. In the same way, they make a bookmark when they want to breed several types of chicks at once.
A very important point is the laying mode: vertical or horizontal. This feature will depend on what breed of chick you are going to breed. Small and medium-sized eggs are laid strictly vertically, this applies to chicken, turkey and quail eggs. Eggs of large birds (goose and duck) are laid in a horizontal position, then the embryo will fully develop.
In the vertical mode, the eggs are placed in an incubator, already heated to the optimum temperature, with the blunt end up. It is at the blunt end that the air chamber is located. For the first few days, the embryo receives air from it.
Development order
As mentioned above, it is necessary to warm up the testicles before laying. Then, at 6 pm, put the incubation material into the device and set the temperature and humidity mode. After 6 days, a planned ovoscopy is carried out in order to weed out the marriage and see if the mode is set correctly. Starting from this day, the temperature is increased to 37.6 ° C, and the humidity indicator should be 50%. In such an environment, the testicles should lie for up to 18 days.
During this time, the incubation material should be turned over to ensure that the chick receives the optimal amount of air and nutrients. So he develops better. Manual overturning should be done at regular intervals. After 18 days, the humidity is gradually increased to 80%, and the temperature is reduced to 37.2 ° C. During this period, it is no longer possible to turn the testicles, otherwise you can injure an already fully formed chicken.
How to lay the incubation material
It is very important to bookmark correctly. Initially, the unit is set to a certain temperature regime. Disinfection of eggs is carried out using an antiseptic. It is strictly forbidden to wash the shell with water.
The laying hen, during natural incubation, turns the testicles with its paws so that the embryo fully develops and does not stick to one side of the shell. Some units have such a function, but most samples do not provide mechanical overturning, so you will have to do it manually. During the entire incubation period, it is necessary to check the testicles on an ovoscope several times in order to reject chicks with pathologies in time or correct their mistakes in setting the regime.
You can, for greater confidence, watch a video that describes all the features of the selection and laying of eggs in the incubator. For the successful hatching of chicks, it is necessary to provide them with optimal conditions even before birth. It is necessary to study all stages of embryo development in order to prevent their death.
Conclusion
Not every laying hen is able to hatch chicks on their own. Many individuals, especially those with eggs, are deprived of the incubation instinct. It also happens that the farmer does not know where to put a large number of fertilized eggs, in which case the incubator will also come to the rescue. For the successful hatching of chickens, it is necessary to create conditions as close as possible to natural incubation. For this, the bookmark is carried out in the evening hours, after keeping the material in a warm room for about 8 hours.
Goose, duck, chicken and turkey eggs will differ in terms of incubation time, so it is not recommended to lay them all together. Farmers recommend not to put different-sized material in the incubator, however, if certain rules of laying are followed, you can get offspring from all the testicles at the same time. Chicks develop best from medium-sized eggs.
In order for the development of embryos to be complete, each farmer must take into account all the nuances of embryo development, especially since there is a video in which experienced farmers tell all the nuances of hatching birds in an incubator. It is necessary to conduct ovoscopy several times during the entire period, which will help weed out the marriage. Defective testicles or those without an embryo should be discarded at any stage of development.