To obtain young stock of broiler chickens in an artificial way, farmers use special devices. There are certain rules, observing which, you can achieve a high percentage of hatching healthy and viable chicks. Humidity and normal temperature in the incubator for chicken eggs is of paramount importance. But before laying the original product, it must be carefully selected and prepared.
Chicken Egg Incubator Temperature
Breeding chickens artificially is an interesting and not particularly difficult process. It can be done both by farmers with many years of experience in growing poultry and by beginners. The main thing is to know all the subtleties of incubation and follow the recommendations of specialists.
Preparatory stage
Preparing eggs for laying is an important stage, which has its own characteristics. The first thing you need to pay attention to is the quality of the product and the time of its origin. So, an egg that a laying hen laid for the first time in her life or all subsequent ones that appeared between 8 pm and 8 am cannot be laid in an incubator. The likelihood that they contain embryos is very small.
In addition, deformed and cracked samples or those whose shells are heterogeneous in color are not suitable for incubation. It is best to choose medium-sized eggs: this way the development of embryos will occur evenly, and hatching will begin in almost all chicken eggs at the same time, the maximum difference is 24 hours (1 day).
The selected material is preferably placed in an incubator for 6 days. In order to securely preserve the food before laying, it must not be kept in the refrigerator. To preserve the original qualities of the original product, you need to take a sheet of plywood or other dense material, cut round holes with a diameter of 4.5-5 cm in it and carefully place them in each egg with a blunt end down.
The air temperature in the room where the eggs are stored, depending on the timing of overexposure, should be within 10-18 ° C with a humidity of at least 65%. Additionally, the room should be equipped with a good ventilation system.
Cleaning the eggs before setting them in the incubator
Immediately before placing in the incubator, each egg must be cleaned of contamination and disinfected in one of 2 ways:
- Within 20 minutes with formaldehyde vapor. Composition: 30 ml - the main substance, 30 ml - water, 30 ml - potassium permanganate.
- Within 3 minutes with aqueous chlorine-lime solution. Composition: 20 g of the main substance, 1 liter of water.
If you need to process many eggs, the first method is preferable.
Sterile product should be placed in the incubator very carefully. You need to wash your hands well, put on medical latex gloves, take the egg by the sides with two fingers and transfer it to the container. It is impossible to take for sharp and blunt ends, since the protective shell can be damaged and the specimen will become unusable.
In the incubators, special trays are provided, on which it is necessary to place the eggs so that their sharp ends look down. If you accidentally put the starting material on the wrong side, all of its contents will begin to press on the air chamber, and it will move, and if this happens, the embryo will not develop correctly and die as a result.
Ideal Egg Chamber Requirements:
- location at the blunt end,
- maximum height - 2 mm.
Egg incubation temperature
In questions of the removal of young animals by artificial means, the key factor is the optimal incubation temperature, which should be evenly distributed inside the incubation chamber. As a rule, this parameter should be considered in tandem with humidity. There is even a special wet thermometer, whose readings differ significantly from a dry thermometer.
This is explained by the fact that simply by measuring the air temperature in the incubator it is impossible to accurately capture all the characteristics of the environment. But a difficult life develops in eggs, so you need to carefully consider all the subtleties.
In addition to the main ones (humidity and temperature), there are no less important additional environmental parameters, such as uniform heating, ventilation and drafts. Only careful adjustment and constant monitoring of compliance with all these factors will result in the withdrawal of the highest quality chickens in a mass and timely manner.
Many household budget incubators are not able to evenly warm the air in all parts of the container, so there is a possibility that embryos will develop faster in some eggs. To smooth out the wrong situation, you need to buy another device or periodically swap the eggs in the tray.
The processes taking place inside all eggs (chicken, duck, goose and even turkey) heat the shell to a certain temperature. It is on these data that the rules for setting the temperature in the incubator are based. To ensure that the artificial environment is as close to natural as possible, during incubation, the device settings must be changed every time after the development of the embryo moves to a qualitatively new level.
Dependence of incubation parameters on its stages
Please note that this information will help to correctly adjust the settings in the incubator for chicken eggs only. If you are planning to breed other birds at home, for example, ducks, it is better to look for information on how to do this in other articles and video sources. Since both the timing and the regime for each species of birds should be set individually.
Incubation steps and recommended regimens
It is important to observe the temperature regime in the incubator, even when the egg is still waiting for its laying in the incubator. The result depends on the correct storage.
As long as the temperature in the egg is lower than the physiological zero of the bird, no processes take place in it. That is why the room where eggs are kept awaiting incubation should be slightly cool.
According to numerous studies of scientists, it is still unclear why the longer the eggs are stored, the less chance of offspring from them. But the fact remains. It was noticed that the best hatchability is shown by specimens that were placed in the incubator after 2 days from the moment they were carried by the brood hen. But you can keep an egg in storage as long as you like, the main thing is to do it at the right temperature:
- from 1 to 3 days - 18-20 ° С,
- from 4 to 7 days - 15-18 ° С,
- from 8 days and longer - 10-12 ° C.
Moisture readings should range from 65 to 80%. Due to the long shelf life and parameters of the parent flock, the incubation properties of the product may be reduced. In this case, in order for the eggs to be well preserved, the humidity must be increased to 85-90%.
Before laying in the incubator, it is necessary to hold the egg for some time in a room after the storage room, where the air temperature jumps within 22-25 ° С.
Incubation should take place in four stages:
- 1 - from the 1st to the 7th day;
- 2 - from the 8th to the 15th day;
- 3 - from the 15th day to the first squeak;
- 4 - from the 1st squeak to the bite.
Incubation mode table
The incubation mode table is designed to help cope with the hatching of chickens. This table contains all the recommended settings that you need to know for incubation at home, and also indicates how often you need to turn eggs during incubation. It is necessary to twist the source material without fail so that the embryo does not grow into the shell. Laying always does this in natural conditions.
Incubation stages | Recommended Humidity% | Optimum temperature for incubating chicken eggs, degrees Celsius | Do I need to turn the eggs |
1 | 60, but not less than 50 and not more than 70 | 38 | Needed, every 60-100 minutes |
2 | 37,6 | ||
3 | 38,6 | ||
4 | 80 | Not necessary |
Many modern devices automatically turn eggs, but if only the simplest home-made incubator is available and this function is not available, you should be ready for 15 days, including at night, to take proper care of the eggs.
First step
After laying in the incubator in the eggs, the processes that began even when they were in the chicken are resumed. As soon as the material becomes warmer than the established physiological zero, embryo development and cell division resumes. At the first stage, the formation of tissues occurs, which subsequently turn into vital organs.
On the third day, the head and heart of the future chicken are already visible in the egg. At this time, the correct uniform ambient temperature is especially important, since the climate around the egg strongly affects the rate of cellular development and the delivery of oxygen from the external environment to the embryo.
Best of all, these processes occur when the eggshell is heated to 37, 7-38 ° C (it can be measured using an infrared thermometer). In the incubator, set the temperature slightly higher.
Second phase
These days, the internal organs of the embryo are formed inside the egg and it is gaining mass. Moreover, the rate of weight gain in embryos increases significantly, especially if the optimum temperature in the incubator for chickens is set. Here you cannot do without ovoscopy:
- If it became noticeable that the embryos develop unnaturally quickly for representatives of the chicken family, it means that the temperature in the incubator has jumped very much, it is enough to simply reduce it, and everything will return to normal;
- if, on the contrary, development is practically not carried out, you need to slightly increase the degree of heat in the settings.
At the second stage of incubation at home, the surface temperature of the eggshell should be 37.5-37.7 ° C. A slight deviation from the norm is allowed. But under no circumstances should the eggshell be colder than 37 ° C and hotter than 38 ° C. Otherwise, embryos will develop inharmoniously, many may even die from overheating or hypothermia.
Stage three
During this period, the maturity of the internal organs and the embryo as a whole begins. The percentage of solids increases, and the fluid in the tissues becomes smaller, and therefore the embryo is already able to feel the stress caused by the temperature regime with its internal organs. If the incubator climate is favorable, the chick will develop according to plan; if not, growth will either accelerate or slow down. That the first, that the second option is undesirable.
It is necessary that the air temperature in the last days was slightly higher than in the previous stages of incubation. The critical boundaries that are dangerous for embryo maturation are below 38.1 ° C and above 38.8 ° C. Ideally, if the shell is heated to 38.5 ° C (plus or minus 0.2 ° C).
We must not forget that the process is accompanied by the active release of metabolic heat from chicken eggs (heat released from the source material, due to the metabolism taking place inside). You need to consider this when setting the settings.
From 16 days until the moment the chicks hatch, so that the temperature in the incubator does not rise to a critical level, ventilation should be turned on for several hours every day. If the device does not have an overheating sensor, it is necessary to independently measure the shell surface every 2 hours and, if necessary, perform forced airing, for some time opening the lid of the container with eggs. When the shell is blown with a stream of air, its temperature is regulated, so the likelihood of overheating becomes minimal.
The fourth stage from the beginning of the squeak to hatching
By this time, the chicks are almost ready for birth, they can turn over on their own inside the shell, so it makes no sense to additionally twist the eggs in the incubator. The main thing now is to provide easy biting in ideal conditions. The table shows what temperature is needed in the incubator, but the data given in it is approximate. During this period, it is worth listening not to dry facts, but to the chickens themselves.
None of the tables will tell you better than small squeaking lumps, which are already impatient to crack the shell and see the big world around them, that they are ready to be born. It is important to listen to chickens: if they feel good, their squeak is even, calm, they sing melodiously with happiness. If they are frozen, hysteria and loud squeaks begin inside the incubator. If the incubator, on the other hand, is unnaturally quiet, then the chicks are hot - it is important to hurry to lower the air temperature before it is too late.
Before breaking through the shell, the chicks begin to spin inside and peck the walls around the perimeter, 3-4 powerful blows are enough to give up the fortress and split in half.
Equipment
Without special equipment, it will be difficult to achieve good results from incubation at home. First of all, it is necessary to purchase instruments that measure with increased accuracy. For example, to check the temperature of an eggshell, you need to use a hygrometer and an infrared thermometer, and without a reliable incubator it is difficult to breed a good percentage of healthy young.
If you are just starting out in poultry farming, choosing an incubator is a very important procedure. There are household appliances for home use for several dozen eggs, equipped with a minimum set of necessary functions. There are technically sophisticated appliances, such as the Cinderella. They are also intended for non-industrial use, but they have a huge number of settings: from a humidity control system, temperature regime and automatic ventilation to an overheating protection system and a hypothermia regulator. There are some experienced poultry farmers who raise a strong and healthy livestock using home-made appliances.
Before acquiring a particular incubator model, it is important to analyze your goals and planned scope, consult with people who have been successfully raising young animals for many years. In any case, it makes no sense to buy expensive semi-industrial equipment at once. You can start with a few dozen eggs and with a simple incubator to practice breeding chickens and understand what the relationship is between incubation parameters and embryo development.
Each device has instructions for use, in which all its functional capabilities are indicated, the output circuit is indicated and the optimum temperature for this is prescribed.
Common causes of death in an incubator include:
- low or high temperature
- high or low humidity,
- Wrong schedule of airing and upheavals.
It is extremely important to know how many degrees the eggs withstand at each stage of their development and set an exclusively permitted indicator. What temperature is permissible, the table of incubation modes will tell you.
If there is a financial opportunity, it is better to overpay a little, but buy an incubator that will automatically maintain temperature and humidity at a set level, ventilate the chamber and turn the eggs over. It is important to keep in mind that even fully automatic devices do not guarantee stable, flawless operation. This is a technique, and it breaks periodically, so every day several times it is necessary to control the incubation process and, if necessary, take measures to eliminate defects in the operation of the device.
The main thing is to remember that greater productivity depends on the conditions created by man.