Incubation Update

I have been keeping the incubator at work during my holidays, so I thought I'd nip in earlier today and have a quick check on the eggs.

Being on holiday I've only been able to check on them every few days, so I've been a bit concerned about the humidity level within the incubator. The natural humidity of the room is about 25%, which is below the 40% recommended for the early stages of incubation. Given my infrequent monitoring of the incubator, there must have been a few days where the humidity has been on the low side. I just hope it doesn't cause any problems with hatching later on.

Anyhow, having carefully washed my hands I again attempted to candle the eggs. I had tried the same last week, but didn't really notice anything. Today, it was very obvious that the air cell within each egg was taking up about 20% of the internal volume. Reading around, it appears that is a fairly normal observation at this stage of incubation. By this stage it should be possible to see the embryo moving around inside each egg, but just as last week my torch was too weak to notice anything. I shall definitely buy a proper egg candler for my next hatch.

Mindful that any bad eggs could leak inside the incubator, I gave each one a good visual inspection to check they were in good external condition. Neither the eggs nor incubator had an odour, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that the embryos are developing as they should.

The eggs are due to hatch in six days time, so stay tuned for an update then.