Has anyone else NOT had a good experience with the Nuture Right 360?

[alpinewelsummer]

It might not be the incubator.

What kind of eggs did you incubate and were they shipped or from your own flock?

It is always recommendable to deworm the parent birds at least 3-4 weeks prior to collecting hatching eggs and add some vitamin supplement to their drinking water afterwards (especially vitamin B complex for ducks!).

Fertile eggs might develop for some days, but when they lack vital nutrients they die off during the incubation.

Sometimes a hidden infection of the parent birds will have the embryos die as well.

Here is some more information for trouble shooting: http://extension.msstate.edu/content/trouble-shooting-failures-egg-incubation

Ducks and chickens, from local friends who we've purchased from before. We avoid shipped eggs. I am very grateful for the information but I promise you we have ruled most things out, as we have 3 other incubators going that have given us great hatches using eggs from the same breeders.

There could be a chance that the eggs of those specific batches happened to have deficiencies, I completely admit that, but it just seems too consistent a pattern.

 

[alpinewelsummer]

Did you get the first one and the exchange one from the same place, I guess? Maybe both machines were from the same lot or something like that and therefore have the same problem??

I got an NR 360 this year. Have done two hatches. Overall first went well. Was two batches of shipped eggs from different places, one batch incubated and hatched in the 360, and one batch incubated in a DIY and hatched in the 360. Overall had 50% (good for shipphatch but technically only 1 (out of 6) hatch from incubating in the 360. Second hatch was disastrous, but there were a lot of potential issues that may or may not have been connected with the 360.

I also had the thought that the turner seemed a little rough, I guess, so I used shelf liner for the whole incubation and made sure the eggs still turned.

My thermostat on the 360 seems off by about 1.5 degrees, but have read to basically never trust the built in thermostat of any incubator. I adjusted accordingly and always had two or more thermometer/hygrometers in there as well.

I also am wondering how much ambient temp and humidity effect the 360. That UFO lid is really nice to look in to, but I wonder about how insulated it is, and you basically have to take off the entire lid to do anything in there. Also clicking the lid back on perfectly is a bit of a pain. Does appear to recover heat and humidity pretty quickly though!

I think I read someone rigging holders of a sort in the turner so those eggs in the turner wouldn’t turn and were upright. Might be worth doing something in the 360 where half the eggs are turned by the turner and half you turn manually. That way all the eggs would be under the same conditions except for the turning.

They were from the same place and had similar issues, so you could be right. I'm wondering if the temperature spiked or dropped at times and then righted itself before we could see, leading to dead chicks without us ever witnessing the fluctuation? It sounds silly but at this point I can't think of what else could be happening. You make a good point with the lid, it's nice to see the eggs but it might have meant fluctuations were happening, especially at night when temperatures dropped and we were sleeping.

That's a great idea of a test run with half hand-turned and half not! I'll pick up a batch from one of the same breeders too to make sure it's from the same flock as well. That would finally settle my mind on this--thank you so much for the suggestion.

 

[LaFleche]

as we have 3 other incubators going that have given us great hatches using eggs from the same breeders.

Well, in that case it must be something wrong with the incubator, just as you suspected.

 

[alpinewelsummer]

Well, in that case it must be something wrong with the incubator, just as you suspected.

Maybe something with just this unit specifically, since everyone seems to have great luck with the 360 in general? We're going to try the test that ladybrasa suggested and see how that turns out. Thank you very much for the information and reponse.

 

[LaFleche]

Maybe something with just this unit specifically, since everyone seems to have great luck with the 360 in general? We're going to try the test that ladybrasa suggested and see how that turns out. Thank you very much for the information and reponse.

Hopefully with better luck!

If you mark one half of the eggs on both sides (X and O) you can see if and how well they will be turned.

I do not have any experience with this specific incubator, but I never trusted this kind of so-called automatic egg-turner and would turn them by hand anyway, as bigger, smaller or otherwise differently shaped eggs will/might not get turned properly.

Several people I know have had issues with similar egg-turners (not the brand of incubator) and their chicks died, stuck to the eggshell or hatched crippled because of it.

 

[ladybrasa]

So for mine, this third time the turner is definitely not working. The test turn - pressing the + and - at the same time - works fine, but otherwise is not turning at all by itself or very sporadically. The same eggs were in front when I went to bed as in the morning. So I am “manually” turning with the test turn three times daily. I can’t rule out that it wasn’t working fully the previous two hatches or not. I was sort of wondering? And the paperwork doesn’t indicate how often or how far it is supposed to turn. I also can’t rule out me messing up the mechanism when cleaning between hatches, like some water got inside or something.

I would definitely be interested in your results if you do the half turned half not turned hatch!

 

[ladybrasa]

Hey, not sure if it’s helpful at this point, but I ended up getting my 360 auto-turning again! It had something to do with setting the number of incubation days. I just assumed that feature was just a countdown for the user, so didn’t bother setting it. If this is your issue, maybe that would explain why more than one incubator wasn’t working for you!

 

[NatJ]

That's a great idea of a test run with half hand-turned and half not! I'll pick up a batch from one of the same breeders too to make sure it's from the same flock as well. That would finally settle my mind on this--thank you so much for the suggestion.

Did you do this test?

If so, what was the result?

 

[ladyh]

So far I hate the nuture right 360 that I got...awful humidity consistancy.

 

[cavemanrich]

.awful humidity consistancy.

Not sure,,,,, but I think you can control that with the amount of water you add??
Can it be the meter showing false readings?? Then consider getting a separate hygrometer. Something like this is reasonably priced, and may suit your needs.

Have other incubators worked better for you??