.Last week the peahens were very busy and had a mega week laying eggs.  All of a sudden I realised my two large incubators were not going to be able to cope with the influx of eggs over the next few weeks.  I needed a new incubator and fast!

First I had to research what was going to work for us at Peacocks UK moving forward. We are hatching peacock eggs galore at the moment so I needed an incubator with some serious capacity,

Most incubators are not large enough for us as we have over 100 eggs a week laid during the peafowl breeding season.

I found a fantastic incubator a Maimo  which would hold 366 peafowl eggs.  It has eight trays for eggs and I can get six peafowl eggs into each basket within the tray. It also has automatic turning which really helps in getting a good hatch rate.

So on Sunday we set it up and  have been busy testing it all week. It is important to get the humidity right and the temperature exactly right. All week we have been tweaking it ready for the next peafowl hatching eggs to go into it.

Today I set 106 peafowl eggs into the incubator, they only filled three trays, so there is still lots of capacity for the next few weeks.

It is a big week for hatching peacock eggs

This week is the first big hatching week for us with 36 eggs already in  the hatcher. One has already hatched a lovely white chick and many more have already pipped. This is where the chick breaks the egg for the first time. To break through the eggshell it first has to break the internal membrane and the external membrane and then finally the egg shell.

Sadly even if the egg is pipped the chicks do not always make it out of the shell.  The old saying “Don’t count your chickens before they have hatched” is totally correct.

So busy days ahead as we wait for amazing nature to take it’s course.