‘It is a surprising fact that, although eggs must have very stable temperatures to incubate successfully, periodic cooling can be a good thing and far from harming the development of chicks, can actually lead to more successful hatching,’ says Frank Pearce, Brinsea’s Founder.
Bird breeders have known for many decades that eggs can be cooled for limited periods of time during incubation without causing problems but recent research has shown that hatch rates can actually increase significantly as a result of cooling.
Cooling is an entirely natural process as most birds will get off the nest at least once a day and leave the eggs unheated for a significant time. From Brinsea’s 40 year experience, the best hatch rates are always achieved when the incubator can best mimic the natural nest conditions. For this reason Brinsea have incorporated a cooling option in all of their Advance models of egg incubators since 2012.
Brinsea have assessed the available research and recommend that smaller poultry, waterfowl and game bird eggs are cooled for 2 hours each day and larger eggs (e.g. duck and goose) are cooled for 3 hours each day from day 7 through to 2 days before they are due to hatch (the same point that automatic turning would normally be turned off). Cooling is not recommended for parrots and birds of prey because the results of cooling for these species haven’t yet been established. This cooling feature is an option which can be enabled to improve your hatch rates.
To read more detailed information about periodic cooling in incubation please click here…
