How to make an ovoscope yourself
The process of forming chickens from an ordinary hen's egg is a unique and interesting phenomenon. You can watch him for hours. Each stage should be carefully monitored using an ovoscope in order to timely determine how the embryo is doing and take measures to prevent pathologies, if any. The device can be purchased at a specialized outlet, or you can do it yourself.
Ovoscope
In late spring and early summer, farmers start raising new birds. Someone entrusts the work to brooding hens, and someone resorts to help incubators... And if in the first case it is possible to do without transillumination, then in the second an ovoscope is necessary.
Making an ovoscope
How to make an ovoscope? To make it yourself, you can use items that are in every home: from a tin can to a flashlight. There are many options for homemade devices, we will consider how to build the best and easiest to make ovoscope with your own hands.
Prepare in advance:
- A cardboard box from under the pringles or something similar of the same diameter.
- Energy-saving lamp (voltage no more than 20W). It is forbidden to use incandescent lamps, they get very hot during operation, thereby harming the egg and melting the body of the structure.
- Cut a wire with a switch and a plug.
- Cartridge.
- A plastic sour cream jar. Important! The diameter of this jar should be a few millimeters less than the cardboard package for chips, so that the first can easily fit into the second.
Instructions for making the device:
- Take a plastic jar and cut its top by 2 millimeters around the perimeter.
- Turn the jar upside down, attach the cartridge, circle it with a marker and make a hole with scissors.
- Insert the bottom of the chuck into the cut-out hole.
- Take a can of chips, at the bottom of it (not in the bottom, but a few millimeters higher) with an awl, pierce another small hole for the wire with your skillful hands.
- Through the hole made with the awl, push the wire into the jar with the stripped end so that it goes through the entire package of chips, then goes into the sour cream jar and connects to the contacts on the cartridge.
- Screw in the cartridge.
- After screwing in the light bulb, insert the sour cream jar into the crisp box so that the light is facing up.
- Use foil or other materials at hand to opacity the chip lid.
- Take a marker, draw an oval on the lid, shaped like an egg, but slightly smaller in size. Cut the corresponding hole.
- Place the lid on the crisp box.
The homemade ovoscope device is ready, you can plug the cord into the outlet and check if the device correctly detects the state of the egg. How to use an ovoscope?
To do this, place it over the hole in the lid and inspect the embryo for several minutes from all sides. An ovoscope for checking eggs works great.
The cost of a factory ovoscope
Of course, in comparison with factory ones, for example, such as an ovoscope, the made device has simpler characteristics and it is possible to check with it only one egg at a time, and not a dozen, but a home-made device performs its main function 100%. In addition, the cost of our device is only a few hundred rubles to check the incubation of domestic chicken eggs, while the factory one in the store costs about 2,000 - 3,000 rubles, but the principle of operation and appearance does not affect the final result.
If you do not want to make the device yourself to check the embryo during incubation, but you do not need an ovoscope for 10 or more eggs, pay attention to the model ОВ1-60-D (Belarusian manufacturer). This device costs several times less than the previous one, it has only one technical mode of operation and you can check no more than one egg on it at a time. But the price does not affect the quality of the check at all.
Buying a desktop ovoscope or making it at home is half the battle, it is important to understand how it works and to know instructions for use and on what day to examine the embryo.
How to use the device
It is undesirable to disturb fertilized embryos with transillumination every day, this can destroy the embryo. The best option is to examine the eggs in the light 2 times a week; in the early stages of incubation, you can less often than one day. Before the procedure, it is imperative to wash your hands and put on sterile latex gloves so as not to bring harmful bacteria and microorganisms onto the egg and not to harm incubation.
How to check an egg with an ovoscope
To view, place the egg over the hole, then turn on the lamp and carefully examine the embryo from all sides (shine through for no more than five minutes, the best option is 1-3). Place in an incubator you only need the best eggs, the ovoscopy of which has shown that they have:
- The structure of the shell is uniform.
- The boundaries of the yolk are blurred, and it itself is located in the middle or closer to the blunt part of the egg.
- The boundaries of the air cushion are clear, it is very small, and its location is also on the blunt side.
- When rotating, the movement of the yolk mass slows down noticeably.
- There are no extraneous inclusions inside.
Using a household ovoscope to check freshly laid eggs is pointless. The first procedure should be carried out only on the 5th day, when this period has passed, an air cushion has already formed, the yolk will thicken a little and it will be clear whether this egg is suitable for incubation, that is, breeding offspring or not.
Now you know how to use the ovoscope correctly.