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“In all the professional books that I’ve read, all the experts say that each species has a different incubating temperature and the more accurate the temperature is – the better the hatching results should be”

To verify this bold statement, he used small-sized data loggers and hid them inside artificial eggs. Those eggs were then placed alongside genuine ones within the nesting box. The loggers were programmed to record temperature readings from inside the egg every 10 minutes. After a period of time, in which the eggs were under the brooding mother, David removed them downloaded the data from the loggers to his computer.

“Surprisingly, the data received from the loggers was not what I expected and painted a totally different picture. The temperature inside the again wasn’t fixed. In fact – it fluctuated between 35 Degrees Celsius and 39 Degrees Celsius and even higher - 40.5 Degrees Celsius… which makes sense because the brooding mother’s temperature is between 41- 42 Degrees Celsius. All the information,  both from the nesting boxes in my aviaries and from birds in the wild showed the same results!
Furthermore, despite the differences in temperature, the hatching results were very good…
After thinking it over, the conclusions were inevitable: if this is what happens in nature, we should create the same conditions in artificial incubation!”

The next step in David’s research was to understand what caused this temperature fluctuation. He explains:

“at first, the brooding female warms the eggs’ upper part by touching it with her body and so it gets warmer than the egg’s lower part. In addition, she rolls the eggs with her beak, moving the warm eggs away and bringing the colder ones closer. All of this during an approximate cycle of an hour & a half. However, neither the temperature changes nor the length of the rolling cycle repeated itself accurately.”

The next step was checking the eggs:

“the experts say that the air pocket inside the egg enables the embryo to breath in the first minutes before the external PiP. It may be true but this is not the main reason. In my opinion, the air pocket allows expansions and contraction of the fluids inside. When the temperature goes up, expansion occurs and the air goes out from the air pocket. When the temperature goes down, a suction is created that allows oxygen to penetrate through the porous eggshell to the embryo.
We can describe this process as “breathing” and it contributes to the embryo’s proper development. A very accurate temperature will prevent the embryo from getting the desirable amount of oxygen it needs. This theory can be supported by candling the egg after 5 days. Then you see that the first blood vessels are attached to the eggshell in order to absorb oxygen for the embryo.

While checking chicken eggs’ embryos I found presence of blood vessels attached to the eggshell until the very last moment of hatching. The embryo’s body absorbed it until he could breath independently through the hole he “PiPed” in the eggshell. Obviously this “PiP” gets made in the air pocket where no blood vessels are present.

It is important to mention that while the embryo starts hatching the breeder can hear his twittering; These are not  stress signs but an indication that the embryo has started to breath by its own. Any intervention at this stage could harm the blood vessels and cause the embryo’s death”.

The temperature’s changes are implemented in the Inca Incubators to guarantee that the embryo will receive enough oxygen to develop as best as possible. Moreover, because we replicate the natural incubating process as explained above, the chicks are stronger, more vivid and lively – and that brings an entirely different perspective to artificial incubation….

David Vishnia summarizes:

“to design a complicated and heavy incubator with many components is easy, but to design a simple, neat & light appliance that will give almost 100% hatching success rates is very hard and not always one can see the huge amount of work that was put into it…

I think that the following quotation from our testimonials’ letters will illustrates my idea:

About 3 monthes ago, the incubator at the hebrew University’s faculty of Agriculture was shut temporarily. This happened at the time we urgently needed a small incubator for research on the development of blood vesseles in the chorioalantoic membrane of chicken embryos.

When looking for a temporary replacement incubator, I was advised to approach you, as a leading producer of small incubators that can easily fit on the bench in my laboratory.

Fortunately, you responded positively to my request and allowed me to use one of your incubators for over 3 months. During this period, we incubated several hundreds of eggs in your incubator, until they reach the embryonic age of 12 days, as required for our study. In the last round, we incubated to eggs all the way to day 21, when the chicks nicely hatched in your machine.

During the use of your incubator, we have been deeply impressed by its sophisticated simplicity. One may think that simplicity and sophistication reflect opposite characteristics, but based on my life-long experience, I know that it take high level of sophistication to produce a product like your incubator, which is characterized by simplicity and reliability.

We wholeheartedly thank you for letting us use your incubator, and for the opportunity to get to know you and your novel and creative contributions to incubation.

Sincerely,

I am glad to present you copies of my two articles, which was published in the following scientific magazines: “Proceedings of The Royal Society”, vol.274, no. 1624.pp.2373-2508, 7 Oct 2007 &  “International Society for Behavioral Ecology Advance Access”, Dec 6, 2007.

In these articles I described how we have been using your excellent Brooders for raising, hand feeding and photographing the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) – the subject of my recherch: “The adaptive value of parental responsiveness to nestling begging” and “Can hungry nestling be trained to reduce their begging?”.

The purchasing of four high quality Brooders – adjustable exactly to my needs – allowed me to conduct along the years complicated experiments with utmost convenience and without any problems.

I thank you also for your support and for all other advice; there is no substitute for your creativity in finding technical solutions and I have no doubt, what so ever, that all other appliances will be acquired from your company.

With much appreciation,

As an aviculturist I breed this species in captivity to produce birds that will be released to the wild, a few of them are retained in captivity to preserve the genetic diversity of the species.  Breeding this species in captivity is a real challenge. There are several reasons for the difficulty of breeding this species, some of the most important are; a reduced gene pool, birds with highly idiosyncratic behaviors and the myriad ways in which captivity affect what are essentially wild birds.

One of the most critical aspects of breeding this species is the management of the eggs.  This is one of the most complex aspects of the operation.   This is so because not all eggs are created equal, some are the hope for an increased genetic representation of an individual that has not previously bred, some are bound for the field to help increase the wild population and some will be traded between the aviaries to keep as diverse as possible the genetics of the different flocks.  Also not all birds are good brooders or good parents, which mean their eggs have to be fostered to other pairs. 

A key piece of the egg management is the egg incubator.  The egg incubator can be both a boon and a bane.  When they are working smoothly you hardly notice them, when they malfunction it can be disastrous.  My experience has included a fair share of both of these experiences.  When I started working with the Inca incubator I was pleasantly surprised that some of our most vexing problems simply were not an issue with this incubator.

One problem we had was that all our previous incubators had a lot of pieces inside the area where the eggs are located.  If there was a need to disinfect this area it involved removing and laboriously cleaning sometimes dozens of rollers, a belt, trays, bags ect.  With the Inca Incubator this can be done very quickly and with minimal effort due to its simple interior structure.

Because the Inca Incubator runs on the same 120 volt range that local utilities use, there is no need for a set up for a different voltage need.  This is no small issue, the aviary is located in a remote spot, in the middle of a tropical forest, in a place with a high frequency of thunderstorms.  In any given day voltage can fluctuate wildly due to tree branches making contact with the wires, thunder hitting the wires or wind damage to the system.   All these fluctuations are hard on electrical appliances, even well protected ones which in theory should be safe from these things.  Unfortunately at times the electrical fluctuations can defeat even the most elaborate defenses and this is the reason most of our incubators have left us for the great incubator room in the sky.  The Inca Incubator which is connected to a battery/surge protector with no intervening apparatus has survived everything the weather has thrown at us.

But the area where the Inca Incubator really shines is in humidity control.  In most locations the problem for bird breeders is low humidity.  But this is not true in the Vivaldi Aviary which is located in the Rio Abajo forest.  Here humidity in any given day, even in the height of the dry season, can fluctuate wildly from 40% to 100% in the course of hours or sometimes in minutes!  Of course the incubator is set up in an air conditioned room that’s kept at 70° F and the air conditioning helps keeps the humidity relatively low.   But all these measures can, and have failed as a result of the many momentary (and sometimes no so momentary) power outages that occur at random during the breeding season.  Because in the Inca Incubator the humidity source is not coupled with the heating element, the humidity source can be removed from the incubator if needed.   This means that humidity stays in the optimal 45% range even if the air conditioner barely pushes it into the 50-55% range.   This is important because it means I don’t have to put a dehumifier in the room to keep the humidity in the 45% optimal range for incubation of this species, this is one less piece of machinery to worry about!

Last but not least is that the Inca Incubator is surprisingly affordable when compared with some other incubator models.   This is significant when one has to run an operation on a budget that demands that you keep a sharp eye on every penny.   I could buy several Inca Incubators with what I have spent in a single one of the others.

To put my experience in a few simple words, I can asset that the Inca Incubator is affordable, easy to operate, reliable and satisfies many of our particular needs.

Some causes for the reduction in population of the Puerto Rican Parrot are the following:
1. Loss of habitat due to massive deforestation on the island between the 19th and mid- 20th centuries.
2. Catastrophic natural events such as hurricanes that struck the island in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of 20th century.
3. Capturing of young ones for the pet market.
4. Illegal hunting.
5. Human disturbance of nursery grounds.
6. Predation, mainly by the red-tailed hawk, pearly-eyed thrasher, mongooses, and rats.

The Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Program is an effort to conserve, protect and manage the wild and captive populations of this endemic parrot in order to down list the species from endangered to threatened, to establish an additional wild population and insuring that both groups are self-sustaining with an effective population size of 500 birds (5 year average) in each area.

We would like to share with you a letter received on December 20, 2011, from Mr. Ricardo Valentin-de la Rosa, the aviculturist for Vivaldi Aviary of the DNER  regarding his work for captive propagation program of the Puerto Rican Parrot.

Mr. Ricardo Valentin-de la Rosa writes to us:

“As an aviculturist I breed this species in captivity to produce birds that will be released to the wild, a few of them are retained in captivity to preserve the genetic
diversity of the species. Breeding this species in captivity is a real challenge.

There are several reasons for the difficulty of breeding this species, some of the most important are; a reduced gene pool, birds with highly idiosyncratic behaviors and the myriad ways in which captivity affect what are essentially wild birds.

One of the most critical aspects of breeding this species is the management of the
eggs. This is one of the most complex aspects of the operation. This is so because
not all eggs are created equal, some are the hope for an increased genetic
representation of an individual that has not previously bred, some are bound for the
field to help increase the wild population and some will be traded between the
aviaries to keep as diverse as possible the genetics of the different flocks. Also not
all birds are good brooders or good parents, which mean their eggs have to be
fostered to other pairs…”

and Mr. Ricardo Valentin-de la Rosa continues:

“A key piece of the egg management is the egg incubator.

The egg incubator can be both a boon and a bane. When they are working smoothly you hardly notice them, when they malfunction it can be disastrous. My experience has included a fair share of both of these experiences. When I started working with the Inca incubator I was pleasantly surprised that some of our most vexing problems simply were not an issue with this incubator. 

One problem we had was that all our previous incubators had a lot of pieces inside
the area where the eggs are located. If there was a need to disinfect this area it
involved removing and laboriously cleaning sometimes dozens of rollers, a belt,
trays, bags ect. With the Inca Incubator this can be done very quickly and with
minimal effort due to its simple interior structure.

Because the Inca Incubator runs on the same 120 volt range that local utilities use,
there is no need for a set up for a different voltage need. This is no small issue;
the aviary is located in a remote spot, in the middle of a tropical forest, in a place
with a high frequency of thunderstorms. In any given day voltage can fluctuate
wildly due to tree branches making contact with the wires, thunder hitting the wires
or wind damage to the system. All these fluctuations are hard on electrical
appliances, even well protected ones which in theory should be safe from these
things. Unfortunately at times the electrical fluctuations can defeat even the most
elaborate defenses and this is the reason most of our incubators have left us for the
great incubator room in the sky. The Inca Incubator which is connected to a
battery/surge protector with no intervening apparatus has survived everything the
weather has thrown at us..”.

“But the area where the Inca Incubator really shines is in humidity control.

In most locations the problem for bird breeders is low humidity. But this is not true in the Vivaldi Aviary which is located in the Rio Abajo forest. Here humidity in any given day, even in the height of the dry season, can fluctuate wildly from 40% to 100% in the course of hours or sometimes in minutes! Of course the incubator is set up in an air conditioned room that’s kept at 70° F and the air conditioning helps keeps the humidity relatively low. But all these measures can, and have failed as a result of the many momentary (and sometimes no so momentary) power outages that occur at random during the breeding season. Because in the Inca Incubator the humidity source is not coupled with the heating element, the humidity source can be removed from the incubator if needed. This means that humidity stays in the optimal 45% range even if the air conditioner barely pushes it into the 50-55% range.

This is important because it means I don’t have to put a dehumifier in the room to keep the humidity in the 45% optimal range for incubation of this species, this is one less piece of machinery to worry about!

Last but not least is that the Inca Incubator is surprisingly affordable when
compared with some other incubator models. This is significant when one has to
run an operation on a budget that demands that you keep a sharp eye on every
penny. I could buy several Inca Incubators with what I have spent in a single one
of the others.

To put my experience in a few simple words, I can asset that the Inca Incubator is
affordable, easy to operate, reliable and satisfies many of our particular needs”.

D.M.P. Engineering wishes to thank Jafet Vélez-Valentín, Luquillo Aviary Team Leader of the Puerto Rican Amazon Recovery Program and Ricardo Valentin-de la Rosa for their important roll in the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Program and the professional and comprehensive review about the Inca Incubator. 

As they say, opportunities are always there – we need only to identify them, so this was our chance to come back to our childhood love for animals…
No hard push needed to reveal the beautiful Finches and as the time went by, the birds’ size (and the options..) became bigger as our aviaries… that were occupied now with Parakeets and Parrots, mostly Australians.
At this point, David turned to be a passionate aviculturist and a breeder.

One thing was a riddle for him: how the hen parrot dare to think that parenting was not her “cup of seeds” and either ignores the eggs or “agree” that her male partner will break it…
So with nature in mind, he decided to combine his two passions – breeding and engineering -
to find a solution for this problem by creating an egg-incubator that he envisioned.

The rest, as they say, is History…..