How do you incubate your eggs?

[Stipe]

This is for all you experienced breeders.

Ive spent my whole life caring for and training budgies. I have never done anything to breed them. Reasons for this is because they are easyier to train as singles. With some cockatiels that i have bred i have incubated them over a 40watt desk lamp over a glass box. I keep the humidity around 60% and the temprature around 27 degrees celcius. This works magic with cockatiels. I artificualy incubate my cockatiel eggs as they have a tendency to eat the eggs.

Recently i have decided that i would like to breed budgies for a change instead of other birds as i just cant get enought of them. Should i let nature take its course or incubate them?

Ok i have two reasons why i would like to articificialy incubate my eggs. One it provides the best posible environment to train the bird that a human is its family and two it gives me the perfect oportunity to make sure that everyone of the babies are healthy and eating good, becase the mother has a tendency to feed the strognest baby. This ensures that they all survive.

your thoughts?

[BUUZBEE]

I personally have never incubated any of my eggs. If I were to decide to handfeed the babies, i would take them when they hatched or a few days after.

[ETAHoffman]

I've never thought of incubating budgie eggs. My hens have always done such a good job I never felt it necessary to intervene. If one hen slacks off, I simply move the babies to a good feeding hen.

As far as incubating and hand feeding making better pets, I wonder. I handle my babies from the day they hatch and, as a result, I guess, they are so incredibly tame when they leave the nest box that I actually have trouble keeping them away from me when I go in the breeding room or "junior" aviary.

I'd just let nature take her course and save yourself a lot of time. I think you'll get the results you want if you simply handle the babies a lot.

All this, of course, IMHO.

[snowy]

Umm I might sound dumb lol but I don't know what incubating is? :S

[ETAHoffman]

Incubation is when you take the eggs from the hen and, through artificial means, keep the eggs warm and properly humidified until they hatch. There are commercial incubators for larger birds like chickens and quail. The larger birds, of course, are able to eat on their own when they hatch. Budgies that may be from incubated eggs will have to be hand fed unless they can be farmed out to a hen that is already feeding chicks. Very time consuming and demanding.