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Accurate and detailed records are very important in incubation.
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In addition to records of individual eggs (See: Introduction and General Information) it is important to keep records of the temperature (dry bulb) and the humidity (from wet bulb) of each incubator, so that increases or decreases in temperature or humidity are detected early and can be corrected.
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Trends in temperature and humidity may be most easily seen if plotted on a graph.
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Waterfowl eggs vary considerably in size (e.g. 25 grams for a teal egg, versus around 300g for a swan egg) and in the normal environmental and climatic conditions under which they would be incubated. Correctly controlling incubator conditions (temperature and humidity) for all the different eggs may be challenging .
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Hatching success may be improved by using parent or broody incubation for the first ten days. Conditions in the early stages of incubation are more critical than late in incubation.
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For waterfowl eggs, incubated at 99.5°F dry bulb temperature, with a wet bulb reading of 84°F, giving 55% relative humidity is suggested as a starting level .
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Incubation conditions for waterfowl eggs of 37.9°C (99.0°F) dry bulb temperature and 31.1°C (88°F) wet bulb temperature, with a hatcher at 36.9°C (98.4°F) dry bulb, 31.1-32.2°C (88-90°F) wet bulb have been suggested .
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A separate hatching incubator should be used with a high (90%-100%) relative humidity, preventing the eggshell membranes from drying. Downies should be left in the hatcher until they are dry.
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Hatching may need to be assisted, with care, checking the blood has been absorbed from the membranes and that the yolk has been absorbed, and keeping the membranes damp at all stages
