Incubation

It took several days to get my little home made incubator to near constant temperature.  It consists of a plastic small animal aquarium/terrarium with ventilated lid, a small container for water and a snuggly bed area for the egg.  I used both my terrarium digital thermometer with a probe to be right next to the egg and another digital thermometer and hydrometer.  I used a terrarium heat lamp as a heat source, varying the distance betweent he terrarium to the heat source.  It was a struggle to get the temperature around what is right and stay there.  There is still variations of 1 degree or some thoughout the day.  My incubator finally came in the mail, but it too takes about a day or so to get to stable temperature, but at least once it's set up, I won't have to do much else.  Turning the egg several times a day is not a big issue.

Unfortunately, after all that, I'm starting to think the turquoisine egg is infertile since there's been absolutely zero change in the egg since incubation.  I'll probably use it to test out the new incubator with self turner but doubt I'll get a baby out of it. 

My sick turquoisine hen is status post 1 week of antibiotics.  She's better, but not completely recovered yet.  I tried to see if she would like to get better sun and fresh air in the bird room during the day yesterday, but she looked a bit tired again, so I think I'll keep her out of the breeze until she finishes all her antibiotics - another week.  She's still quite lively when I try to clean her face with a wet cotton swab and appears to be eating well, so at least that's good news.