Unexpected clutch. advice?

A month ago I purchased a gorgeous 1600g female fire and I was cleaning cages today and realized that sometime today or last night she laid 4 eggs. I'm super excited but totally unprepared for it as my male is still 100g away from being ready to breed. I'm going to run and grab my old incubator from my parents poultry projects 15 years ago and try to make do with that unless I'd be better off letting her do it naturally. I've been reading like crazy the last month trying to plan my own breeding project but this was unexpected so any advice and/or help would be much appreciated! thanks so much!!!

Totally your call! There are pros and cons to both. I incubate my clutches in a bator. I feel it's safer to have them on a diffuser in a tub that will have more than enough humidity and I can control the temperature more closely. :gj:

Wouldnt hurt to let her do it.
What chicken bater are you using?

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

Wouldnt hurt to let her do it.
What chicken bater are you using?

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I don't know the model. It is an ancient incubator. probably mid 70's vintage. It is well built and plenty big. It is about 6" deep and roughly 2' in diameter. metal. I used it extensively during my 4-H years for guineas, ducks and geese and had no issues.

If the incubator works, I suggest going to get it. There is nothing typically wrong with letting her do it but I have heard more success stories with them being in an incubator. I am sure if you do your research thoroughly, you will come up with the right decision that suits your situation best.

I got the incubator but the 6qt tubs I was planning on using are too tall due to the overhead heating system. If I can't find tubs that are shorter tomorrow I guess I will let her take care of them and see what happens. my only worry is the lack of humidity. currently in ohio it is plenty humid but the weather here is unpredictable and the room temp fluctuates quite a bit. the rack temps stay fairly steady but I have to keep a close eye on it. I'm getting the incubator up and running in the event that I can find shallow enough tubs. I greatly appreciate the info and advice from everyone!!

One question I do have about maternal incubation is how does the lower humidity in a rack affect the eggs? it would seem that the humidity would be far too low as compared to the 100% that you can get in a tub inside an incubator. I never planned on doing anything other than incubating so never did any research on maternal tho I will do some reading tonight once I get everything else taken care of.

I had my girl set up in a 41qt tub, had cypress mulch(or you can use orchid bark) and mixed it with some damp sphagnum moss on one side of the tub over the heat. then got a smaller plastic container that fit upside down in the 41qt tub, big enough to go around the girl and eggs both with and length wise. Cut a hole in the small tub for her to enter through, bury it so it touches the bottom of the 41qt tub and fill the substrate in around the hide (leave the substrate inside the hide too) place probe under the hide to monitor temps. I sprayed around the hide every other day more or less, I didn't worry about humidity too much because of the substrate and moss. I think mom can also bump the humidity up if needed if there is not a huge depletion of it, by soaking in the water bowl. I hatched out 5 healthy babies, one is now one of my breeder males. I have two clutches that I did not think were going to drop this year; one less then a week in and one about 20 days in, i'll see how they come out.

ok, so I woke up this morning and checked on her and saw two eggs had rolled out. Both the eggs were dimpled in and from what ive read that's a sign of too low of humidity so I put all the eggs into a tub in the incubator with a damp (clump-able but not to the point of water running out when squeezed) vermiculite bed. I used glad press and seal as the sealer. it has been 19 hours since I put them in the incubator which is holding at 89 degrees. The eggs are still dimpled. condensation has not yet started to form inside the tub. I was just wondering if the eggs were soaking the water up thus no condensation or if it just takes more time for it to form. I actually have 5 eggs all of which I candled and all are fertile. 3 of the 5 are dimpled. I've only incubated birds before which do not have as hi a humidity requirement and am just worried so please forgive my noobish-ness and questions. Any help is much appreciated!

If you have been reading like crazy, you should be ready for it