Our incubation set up consists of both Roll-X and Brinsea incubators. All incubators have holes drilled in the lids so we can use scientific grade heat sensors to monitor the exact temperature of the incubators. Roll-X have holes drilled in the back of the lid for wet-bulb thermometers to be inserted so that exact wet bulb humidity can be monitored

Roll-X (blue and green incubators) are our incubators of choice, but since they are no longer manufactured, we have had to buy Brinsea (yellow incubators) to use until we figure out how to refurbish Roll-X with non-manufacturer parts. Brinsea are the best incubator left on the market, but they are highly inaccurate and need constant monitoring to actually function near ‘as advertised’.

As eggs are collected, they are marked with the species pen code, pen number, and date (e.g. a Blue Eared 1 egg collected on May 19th would be BL 1 M 19). Eggs are left over night at room temperature and then washed (if dirty) and entered into the hatching book (each breeding pen of each species has its own page in the book). Eggs are then set into their respective incubators each morning depending on the size of egg and the humidity that they require. Incubators are checked for temperature and humidity at least twice per day. During incubation, eggs are candled after 1 week and then at least twice per week until pipping. Once eggs are near pipping, eggs are checked for pips at least twice per day, approximately 12 hours apart since you do not want chicks hatching in the regular incubators and getting them dirty. Once eggs have pipped, they are moved into individual hatching baskets into one of two hatchers (incubators that do not have turners and have water dumped into the bottom twice per day to ensure high humidity to make hatching easier.