How to Hatch Emu Eggs: Whitetail Hollow Farms Incubation Guide

Emus typically lay in the evening, which means our mornings start with what we jokingly call an “emu egg hunt.” Some days we spot an egg from across the pasture, gleaming dark green against the sand and pine straw. Other mornings, we walk the fence line, check the regular hiding spots, and eventually find one tucked exactly where we didn’t expect it. It’s the kind of small farm ritual that makes early mornings worth it. 

Once an egg is found, we bring it in, wipe the dirt and sand off with a dry cloth, and label it with a white chalk marker — nothing fancy, just clean and easy to read without harming the shell. We note the date, pasture or hen (when we know for sure), egg number, and the weight. 

Emu eggs stay viable for a surprisingly long time. We aim to set or ship eggs within 3–10 days, but we’ve hatched strong, healthy chicks from eggs that were 21 days old. While we’re holding them, the eggs rest in a cool room, and we gently turn them each day so the yolk never settles against the shell. It’s simple, steady care — the kind of thing you do almost without thinking once you’ve done it through enough seasons.

When an egg has traveled through the mail, it’s lived a whole life before it reaches you — one filled with bumps, tossing, pressure changes, and who-knows-what from the shipping trucks. That’s why we always insist on a 24-hour rest period before anyone puts a shipped egg into an incubator.

We recommend resting them upright, with the large end slightly elevated, and giving them a few gentle turns that day. It helps the air cell settle and gives the yolk a chance to float back into the correct position after its journey.

It’s also why we’re honest with customers: We cannot guarantee hatch rates on shipped eggs. We do everything right on our end, but once the box leaves our farm… the universe takes over.

From the very beginning, we chose GQF cabinet incubators for our emu eggs, and after all these years, we can’t imagine doing it any other way. Emu eggs are dense, heavy, and slow to warm or cool, which means they depend on an incubator that stays steady through anything our Florida seasons throw at us. A full-size cabinet gives us exactly that: consistent temperature, controlled humidity, and reliable airflow for the entire 50–60 day incubation.

Our cabinets have held perfect temps through winter cold snaps, sudden storm fronts, and even a couple of brief power blips. And because they’re full-size units, they give the eggs plenty of breathing room instead of crowding them together. Each tray holds 12 emu eggs, and each cabinet holds three trays — up to 36 eggs per unit. With that many eggs in one place, stability matters more than ever.

We even keep a small inverter generator dedicated just to the incubators, because in Florida, the power goes out at least once every season. Losing power for even a short stretch can be devastating when you have this many developing embryos relying on steady warmth. Having that generator sitting at the ready has saved more hatches than we can count — and gives us peace of mind we wouldn’t trade for anything.

We did run two fully loaded cabinets once, and while it was a successful hatch, it turned into absolute chaos on the brooder end. At one point we had around 20 emu chicks in a brooder setup all at the same time, and it was nonstop noise, mess, and cleaning. They were adorable, but it was overwhelming, and we haven’t repeated it since. Now we keep things paced and manageable, with one cabinet dedicated to incubation and the second used solely for hatching.

The photo here shows a much calmer tray — a more typical and much more enjoyable start to our season.

Before the first egg goes in each year, we give our incubators a full clean. But unlike some of the old books (which recommend formaldehyde… absolutely not), we sanitize with a non-toxic mix of Thieves Household Cleaner and hydrogen peroxide.

We disassemble what’s safe to remove, wipe everything down, and let it dry completely. No harsh fumes, nothing dangerous around developing embryos, and no chemicals that make us nervous about breathing the air around the incubator.

Then we bring the cabinet up to temperature and let it run empty for 24 hours. We want everything rock steady before we commit the first egg.

Over the years, we’ve dialed in our incubation settings to a place that feels almost second nature now. Emu eggs are long-haul eggs — they take their time, they don’t forgive big temperature swings, and they absolutely respond to the consistency of the environment they’re in. So while these numbers might look simple on paper, there’s a lot of lived experience behind them.

We keep our cabinets at 97.5°F, which has given us the most reliable development across the board. Emu eggs don’t like to run hot, and they don’t need the higher temps that many people use for poultry. The lower temperature keeps growth steady and helps avoid late-term losses that can happen when embryos get stressed. It’s not a dramatic setting, but it’s the one that has kept our hatch rates strong season after season.

Humidity is kept on the lower side — around 30% — which surprises a lot of people until they’ve worked with emu eggs themselves. These shells are thick, strong, and naturally retain moisture more than chicken eggs ever will. We want a slow, even loss of weight over time, so keeping humidity low is essential. Living in Florida, where humidity swings from “pleasant” to “swamp” overnight, we run a dehumidifier in the hatchery almost all season long just to keep conditions stable. There have been plenty of mornings where the weather outside tried to undo all our hard work, and that little dehumidifier saved the day.

Turning stays simple but consistent. The cabinet’s automatic turner rotates the trays gently every hour, which keeps the embryos from settling in one place. Along with that, we give each egg a hand-turn — just a gentle quarter turn — once a day. Over time, that small habit becomes a moment to check in: to look for any condensation, to make sure room humidity hasn’t spiked, or to confirm that weight loss is tracking where it should be.

While we are doing our hand turn it also allows a quick air exchange. It’s fast — just long enough to let in fresh oxygen and look everything over — but that short moment each day adds up. Emu embryos develop best with steady, fresh airflow, and this routine has been a key part of our successful hatches.

There’s nothing complicated or flashy about these settings. They’re just the steady, proven choices we’ve made after years of watching these eggs develop under all kinds of weather, power outages, and unexpected surprises. They’re the choices that keep us grounded every season.

Because you can’t candle emu eggs, weight loss is our window into what’s happening inside. Every egg gets weighed and recorded right before it goes into the incubator, then weighed again on a regular schedule.

We use our Emu Hatching Log to track:

• Egg ID (matched to the white chalk label on the shell)

• Starting weight

• Date and weight at each check-in

• Total percentage of weight lost so far

As a general guideline, we’re looking for roughly 12–15% total weight loss by hatch. If a batch is losing weight too slowly, that usually means humidity is running too high and we’ll adjust. If they’re losing weight too fast, we tighten things up.

The scale doesn’t show us everything, but it tells us enough to know whether we’re on track – especially in those quiet weeks when nothing appears to be happening at all.

Chicken keepers are almost always surprised by this one: emu eggs can’t be candled. The shells are simply too much — dark, thick, and heavily pigmented. Even with a strong candler in a dark room, you’re not seeing veins or movement. You’re mostly just staring at what looks like a very expensive green rock and hoping for the best.

We learned early on that trying to “peek” inside only leads to frustration, so we stopped wasting time on it. Instead of looking for visual confirmation, we learned to pay attention to what emu eggs will tell you — just in quieter ways.

We watch the calendar closely, always knowing where we are in the incubation window. We track weight loss, because that slow, steady change over time tells a much clearer story than any flashlight ever could. And as hatch day gets closer, we rely on the subtle signs — the tiniest movement when you’re sure the room is still, faint tapping you almost miss, or the first soft whistles coming from inside the shell that make you stop whatever you’re doing and listen again.

It’s one of the biggest mindset shifts with emu eggs. You don’t get instant reassurance. You don’t get daily visual proof. You learn to trust your records, your routine, and the process you’ve followed for weeks. With emus, faith comes before confirmation — and that patience is often rewarded when you least expect it.

By the time your calendar hits day 40, you’ll start feeling that familiar mix of excitement and dread — the “is anything even happening in there?” phase. Every emu keeper goes through it, and trust me, it never gets old.

On paper, emu eggs are supposed to hatch somewhere between 48 and 54 days, but out here on our farm, they follow their own rhythm. Most of ours will pip right around day 48–51, but we’ve had plenty of seasons where a chick takes its sweet time. One of our healthiest little ones didn’t make an appearance until day 52, long after we had stopped expecting to hear that first faint tapping.

Because of that, we’ve learned not to watch the calendar too tightly — and absolutely never to rush to toss an egg thinking it’s a dud. We keep every viable egg in the hatcher until day 60, no exceptions. Emu chicks are deliberate. They rest. They reposition. They wait for conditions that feel exactly right to them. Sometimes the “quiet” eggs are doing the most behind the scenes.

So if your hatch feels slow, that’s normal. If nothing’s pipped by day 48, breathe. If you’re pacing the floor on day 50, welcome to the club. And if you hit day 52 with radio silence? Don’t touch that egg. We’ve been surprised more than once — and those late bloomers have turned out to be some of our strongest chicks.

Bottom line:
If the egg looks good, smells normal, and hasn’t lost integrity, give it the full 60 days. Tossing early is one of the easiest ways to lose a chick that simply needed a little extra time.

Around day 45, the focus quietly shifts from growing to getting ready to hatch. We call it lockdown, but that doesn’t mean the eggs are ignored or forgotten — it just means the kind of attention they need changes.

By this point, eggs are moved into our hatcher, and humidity is raised to around 50 -55% to keep the membrane moist during hatch. From here on out, stability matters more than adjustments. That said, we’re still very involved. We continue to handle the eggs carefully, watching for subtle movement, listening closely, and sometimes taking them out briefly to “breathe.” Those moments — when the room is quiet, and you catch a faint whistle or trill from inside the shell — never stop feeling incredible.

Because our hatch season runs from December through May, we often incubate and hatch in overlapping batches. We typically hatch 5–10 eggs at a time, intentionally pacing things so chicks aren’t alone. Emu chicks do better when they hatch alongside a companion, and spreading hatches out keeps both the brooder and our sanity manageable.

That overlap means that sometimes the automatic turner in the main cabinet cannot be turned off because other eggs are still actively incubating. Our hatcher itself does not have an auto-turner — and that distinction matters. This is something we feel strongly about, because we learned it the hardest way possible.

If you are hatching in a cabinet that still has an auto-turner running, you must be extremely diligent. We lost a chick once that hatched early in a tray and became caught in the turner. It was devastating, and it’s not something we’ll ever forget. From that point on, we became even more intentional about separation, timing, and constant checks during the hatch window.

Once an egg has externally pipped, we generally stop handling it. At that stage, humidity becomes the priority. Dry air can cause membranes to tighten and shrink-wrap a chick, making it nearly impossible for them to move. So instead of touching or rotating eggs, we focus on maintaining stable, humid conditions and letting the chick do what it’s designed to do.

There’s a lot of debate around whether to help during hatch. Our approach is simple and conservative: we do not assist for the first 24–36 hours. Emu chicks need to use their legs to push themselves out of the shell. That struggle is important. Helping too early or too aggressively almost guarantees leg issues later — something that’s far harder to fix than waiting a little longer during hatch.

The only time we intervene is if a chick becomes shrink-wrapped. In that case, we don’t peel or pull. We lightly spritz the membrane with water to rehydrate it and give the chick the chance to continue on its own. The goal is always the same: support the process, not replace it.

Lockdown and hatch aren’t about hovering or forcing outcomes. They’re about watching closely, knowing when to act — and knowing when not to. That balance comes from experience, patience, and a deep respect for how these little dinos are meant to enter the world.

Hatching emu chicks is exciting, but the brooder is where the real work starts. By the time a chick is ready to leave the hatcher, we want the brooder completely set up and waiting. Scrambling at the last minute is stressful for everyone, and emu chicks do best when they move into a calm, prepared space.

We keep our brooders simple, safe, and easy to clean. The space is draft-free, with plenty of room for chicks to move without slipping or piling up. Footing matters a lot with emu chicks. They hatch with long legs and big feet, and slick surfaces can cause problems fast. We use carpeted mats that provide traction so they can stand and walk confidently right from the start.

For heat, we are very firm about this: we only use heat plates.
We do not use heat lamps. Period. Heat lamps are a fire hazard, and we’re not willing to risk our animals or our buildings to one. We have seen firsthand the devastation they cause when a friend lost his home to one. Heat plates provide steady warmth without exposed bulbs or unstable fixtures. They also allow chicks to warm themselves naturally by moving under the plate when they need heat and away when they don’t. That freedom matters, and we’ve found chicks raised this way are calmer and more confident.

The brooder is set up with a warm area and a cooler area so chicks can regulate themselves. When they’re comfortable, they spread out, nap, and explore. If they’re piled up tightly, they’re cold. If they’re hugging the edges, they’re too warm. Watching how they move tells us more than any thermometer ever could.

Water and feed are always available, but we don’t panic if chicks ignore them at first. Newly hatched emu chicks typically don’t eat for the first two to three days. They hatch with large yolk reserves and spend those early days absorbing that yolk and figuring out how their bodies work outside the shell. This is normal. We keep water shallow and safe, watch closely to make sure everyone finds it, and trust the process. By about day three, curiosity kicks in, pecking starts, and appetites follow.

We also keep the following convenient to the brooder — paper towels, clean water, feed, and a trash bin — because once chicks are active, cleaning becomes constant. And experience has taught us another important lesson: too many chicks at once is chaos. We’ve had as many as 20 emu chicks in one brooder setup before, and while they were adorable, it was nonstop noise, mess, and cleaning. That experience is a big reason we now pace our hatches more intentionally.

A calm, well-set-up brooder makes everything easier — healthier chicks, less stress, and a much more enjoyable start to life outside the shell.

Even with perfect handling, shipped eggs are unpredictable. That’s simply the reality of sending something alive through the mail, no matter how carefully it’s packed.

Once an egg leaves our hands, there are things we cannot control — postal handling, temperature swings, transit delays, vibration, or impact along the way. Any one of those factors can affect development before an egg ever reaches an incubator. Because of that, we can never guarantee hatch rates on shipped eggs — and no honest breeder can.

What we can guarantee is everything on our end.

We ship fresh eggs, stored correctly from the moment they’re laid. Eggs are gently turned daily while they’re waiting to be set or shipped, carefully packed, and sent with clear instructions so you know exactly how to handle them once they arrive. Our goal is to give every egg the strongest possible start before it ever leaves the farm.

Pre-orders for shipped emu eggs will open January 1st, 2026, after the holidays. This season we’re being very intentional with numbers. We’ve set a few of our own eggs already and are running a small, limited hatch, pacing the season rather than pushing volume. That same mindset carries over to shipped eggs — fewer eggs, handled carefully, with attention to timing and condition instead of rushing anything out the door.

When you receive eggs from us, you’re getting the best starting conditions we can provide — backed by years of experience, careful handling, and realistic expectations. From there, the rest of the journey belongs to the egg, the incubator, and a good dose of patience.

Hatching emu eggs is a blend of instinct, precision, patience, and a little bit of wonder. Every season teaches us something new, and every hatch still feels special — even after nearly a decade of doing this. No two seasons are ever exactly the same, and that’s part of what keeps us paying attention.

If you’re ready to try it yourself, take this process step by step, give yourself some grace along the way, and trust what you’ve set in motion. Emus don’t rush anything. They take their time — and more often than not, the wait is worth every minute.

We’re also working on a printable emu hatching log and a simple hatching checklist to go along with this guide. They’re not quite ready yet, but they’re coming soon. If you’d like those updates — along with future emu guides and seasonal notes from the farm — make sure you’re on our newsletter list.

One quick note we want to be upfront about: while we love sharing what we’ve learned through our blog and resources, we’re not able to provide individual troubleshooting or hatching support through direct messages unless you’ve purchased eggs or chicks from us. Every breeder’s setup, stock, and practices are different, and the best source of guidance will always be the breeder you purchased from. We encourage you to lean on them for hands-on support — and use this guide as a general reference along the way.

.