Lockdown question

[mandieg4]

I started my first batch of eggs in the incubator on 14th. So day 18 is on the 1st. Do I take the automatic turner out on the 31st? or the morning of the 1st?

 

[Icu4dzs]

I'm thinking you might need to stop the turner 3 full days before day 21 when they are supposed to hatch. The turner is supposed to keep them from "sticking" to the membrane inside the egg...but then I am on my FIRST batch in the incubator as well. I hope at least some of them hatch!


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[patandchickens]

I have struggled with this question since I built my incubator two years ago. Asked *repeatedly* on BYC and read bunch of other threads on subject.

I have come to the conclusion that different people do it differently -- some people consider the day you put the eggs in to be day 1, others consider that day 0, and even among people with the same "numbering system", some people stop turning at the beginning of day 19 and others at the end. And you know what? There are bunches of each type of people who get good hatches. (Also bunches who get lousy hatches).

So I do not get the impression that it is highly critical.

My suggestion -- or anyhow what I did myself -- was "pick something, do it, write down whatcha did, then if you have problems that logically might be attributed to that course of action you can change it next time, or if you get a good hatch then do the *same* next time"

JMHO, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[sms263]

The day you set the eggs is 0 then count 18 days - take eggs off turner and make sure you increase the humidy. Good luck - what breed are you hatching?

 

[mandieg4]

Thanks for the help. It'll be a miracle if any of them hatch anyway. We had a mishap with the thermostat on day 3 and the incubator got up to 120 for a couple minutes. I candled a couple days ago and saw two moving, but that was it. I've pulled 12 out so far that I thought were not developing, but when I cracked them open all but three looked like they were on schedule The eggs are all brown shells and it's really hard to see anything so I just left the eggs that I wasn't sure about in there. I just hope nothing explodes

I have 4 easter-eggers, 5 turkens, 5 red stars, 5 silver laced wyandottes and 19 black sexlinks with a silver laced wyandotte rooster. So basically I have a slim chance at silver laced wyandotte chicks and a incubator full of mutts

 

[patandchickens]

We had a mishap with the thermostat on day 3 and the incubator got up to 120 for a couple minutes. I candled a couple days ago and saw two moving, but that was it. I've pulled 12 out so far that I thought were not developing, but when I cracked them open all but three looked like they were on schedule The eggs are all brown shells and it's really hard to see anything so I just left the eggs that I wasn't sure about in there. I just hope nothing explodes

If it makes you feel any better, that is just like my first few experiences incubating, only I was probably worse

Look, at least you have learned that a very brief spike to 120 does NOT kill 'em all (obviously most of them survived it), plus which presumably learned to avoid that particular thermostat mishap; so those are really good things to know for next time.

And yeah, it really does greatly *suck* to break open eggs you think aren't developing and discover you've killed perfectly good embryos, BUT most people only do that for one or two hatches and then have firmly learned the lesson of Don't Do That. Which of course is something we all have to learn. And I must say, books and websites seem to generally do a LOUSY job of warning us about it!

There've been a few threads on BYC about 'how many of you have ever had an egg actually explode in the 'bator?' and the general gist seems to be that unless you have eggs that were pretty filthy, or an uncleaned incubator, it is actually extremely rare. I was very annoyed to learn this AFTER I had broken open a bunch of, like yours, perfectly good developing eggs. Harrumph!

But, now we both KNOW it, and since I've left eggs alone in the incubator til the end of the hatch I have had far better hatching percentages LOL I do make notes on which eggs look 'suspicious' to me and which look like they're going well -- I number my eggs individually -- and am getting somewhat better at *correctly* identifying the quitters. But til I am 100% on it, I'd rather risk losing part or all of one hatch to the mythical rare exploding egg, than predictably lose multiple eggs each time to human error!

It is a really lousy lesson to learn the hard way though, and I sure wish that incubating instructions tended to be firmer on this point :/

Anyhow, good luck and since my first TWO hatches were 0% you are pretty certain to do better than ME at least LOL,

Pat