Incubator temperature

The other day, a friend told me that he had asked someone who had bred shamas for about 2 years, what the incubator temperature should be for shama eggs.  The breeder was his friend and he was surprised when the breeder told him that this was "confidential information" and refused to provide it.

As I know this breeder very well, I was not surprised at his attitude. However, it says something about him that he would refuse to assist a friend with information that is already freely available to the public on my website and blog and possibly elsewhere.  This breeder had himself discovered the temperature setting for shama eggs from my website and blog.

I should mention that when I wanted to artificially incubate shama eggs about a dozen years ago, no information on the subject was available despite my diligent search. I had to find out the proper temperature setting for shama eggs through research and trials.

It was a frustrating search. Books that I came across provided long lists of temperature settings for the eggs of various birds but not for shamas.  However, in one book that I came across (I think it was "Practical Incubation" by Rob Harvey) it was suggested that in the absence of information on the precise temperature for hatching eggs, a temperature setting of 37.4 degrees centigrade would probably be OK for small birds.

I tried this temperature setting for my shama eggs. The eggs hatched in about 11 days with no problems and I have since been using this temperature setting and recommending that this setting be used in my writings on breeding the shama.  I feel that such information should be shared as the more successful breeders of shamas there are the less demand there will be for wild-caught shamas and this is a good thing as we should preserve the birds in the wild as much as possible.

For novice breeders who may need to artificially incubate shama eggs, may I suggest that you type the word, "temperature" in the search box of this blog for basic information on the correct incubator temperature and other related information on incubator hatching.