Because of the thickness of the egg shells and the dark color, emu eggs cannot be candled without sophisticated equipment. I don’t have such equipment so I weigh the eggs. An incubating egg should lose 12 – 15% of it’s starting weight by the time it hatches. If you weigh the eggs and record the rate of weight loss, you can tell if an embryo is developing and you can also know if you need to adjust the humidity in the incubator.
I am happy to report that all three emu eggs appear to have developing chicks as all have lost to appropriate amount of weight for this stage of incubation. They are incubating in the Brinsea Octagon Advanced with an automatic humidity pump. The pump is driving me crazy because it is sitting on my desk. Every time the humidity in the incubator goes down it pumps small amounts of water in to raise it back up. It is sort of noisy. That is all I have to report at this time. I will post again after the next weigh in.
Egg Starting Weight Current Weight Amount Lost Percentage
A 618.02 grams 609.51 grams 8.51 grams 0.15%
B 532.97 grams 521.63 grams 11.31 grams 0.62%
C 669.05 grams 654.87 grams 14.1 grams 0.61%
Garrett Ranch says
Keep us posted!!
I can't wait!!!!
Dan