A few questions about incubating eggs

[Egg king]

Hi
I wanted to a few things about incubating eggs

1.How many times do you have to rotate eggs in an incubator and for how many days do you have to rotate them

2. For what exactly do people tilt eggs sometimes

3.I read that eggs can be refrigerated
before being incubated so for how long can eggs be fertile in a fridge and out of a fridge untill they loose their fertility

 

[MysteryChicken]

Rotation of eggs, the more the better. I set my incubator to rotate eggs 6-8 times a day.

Tilting in egg carton cups for Jiggly, or detached aircells for shipped eggs.


I've successfully hatched eggs upto 3 weeks old.(Note: The eggs I hatched were washed, & destined to be eaten). Viability drops the longer the eggs sit in the fridge. I would suggest hatching refrigerated eggs no more then 2-3 weeks old at most.

 

[Ridgerunner]

1.How many times do you have to rotate eggs in an incubator and for how many days do you have to rotate them

There is no set number of times you need to turn them. A lot of people turn them three times a day and do well. If you want to turn more often you can, it won't hurt. More often is slightly better, but unless you are incubating a huge number of eggs you're not going to notice the difference.

The eggs need to be turned the first 14 days of incubation. After that they don't have to be turned but we usually go to day 18 so we can do everything to do with lockdown at one time.

2. For what exactly do people tilt eggs sometimes

There are two ways to turn eggs or position them for hatch. You can lay the egg flat and roll it over 180 degrees each time you turn them. Some automatic turners do it this way. You can stand them upright with the pointy side down and lean them to one side 45 degrees, then when you turn them lean them 45 degrees the other way. Either way works to turn them.

During hatch you can do the same thing, either lay them flat or stand them upright, just don't turn them.

3. I read that eggs can be refrigerated before being incubated so for how long can eggs be fertile in a fridge and out of a fridge untill they loose their fertility

The idea temperature to store eggs for incubation is around 55 degrees Fahrenheit. They also should be in high humidity. If you store them in ideal conditions they can stay fertile for two weeks or more. The further from the ideal conditions the faster they lose fertility. It's not like they go a certain number of hours and then all of a sudden every one is no longer fertile. The number gradually drops over time. Some eggs are a lot tougher than others.

Not all refrigerators are set at the same temperature. Some can even be warmer in certain locations inside. The closer they are to freezing in your fridge the less time they can spend in there and maintain good fertility. Outside of a fridge is not all the same temperature everywhere either. Some people may set the AC close to 70 F, some close to 80 F. Some don't have AC so the ambient temperature can be quite a bit higher. In both of these you can have pretty low humidity.

I'll repeat. The further you are away from ideal conditions the faster they lose hatchability. That can be different for each egg, it is not a set number for every egg.

You will sometimes read that you should not refrigerate eggs. You shouldn't either if it is set cool enough to keep your food safe, you should store them where it is 55 F. You shouldn't store them at room temperature either, unless your room temperature is 55 F. Very few of us have a place that is 55 F so we have to do the best we can. They just may not last as long. I store mine at a room temperature in the upper 70's, thermostat set at 78 F. Humidity is usually kind of low after the AC dries the air out. I can store mine for a week and still get good hatchability. I don't go more than a week.

I don't know what your conditions are. If your ambient temperatures are in the 80's or 90's your refrigerator may be the best place for your eggs. If your AC is set in the 70's Fahrenheit I would not refrigerate them. I don't know how long they will last either way, you'll need to try it to find out. And it's not that they all hatch or none hatch, the number that will hatch drops over time until it finally hits zero.

 

[Egg king]

Ok thanks to everyone
I think i will try to pull my eggs maximum 2 weeks and if i have to a little more

 

[Egg king]

Hi
Sorry im new to incubating eggs
I was doing research and i found that some people use cloths for humidity
My question is
Does that mean theres no real need for the humidity to be controlled
I only have a temperature controller installed in my homemade incubator at the moment

 

[Ridgerunner]

Does that mean theres no real need for the humidity to be controlled

No, humidity is important. You don't have to be as precise with humidity as you do with temperature but you still need it to be in the right window.

The egg shell is porous, it will lose moisture throughout the storage and incubation. If it loses too much or too little the egg can have problems hatching. Nature was nice enough to us to provide a window of moisture loss that works but you need to be in that window. Different eggs are stored for different lengths of time so some will lose more moisture than others during storage so they have different starting points. Some eggs are more porous than others. The storage conditions have an effect on how much moisture is lost. It makes sense for nature to give us a window.

The problem is that each of us have different conditions when it comes to what humidity works for us. Incubators are different, eggs lose more humidity in some than in others. The moisture in the air outside the incubator can affect moisture loss inside. If the air coming in is dry the eggs can lose more moisture than if the air is moist. Elevation above sea level can make a difference because of air pressure. Just lots of differences. The humidity that works for me might not work that well for you.

So what can you do? First you need a hygrometer to go in the incubator to show what the humidity is in there. You can calibrate it to see exactly how closely it is reading humidity correctly but I never did. It's probably off by a few percentage points. Then you do trial and error. Pick a starting point for humidity. Be as consistent as you can in maintaining that humidity. See how it goes. Look at your hatch and see if you need to make any adjustments. You'll probably get some to hatch, often a lot. My first hatch was about 70% which I was OK with. My incubator instructions suggested 45%, which is where I started with my uncalibrated hygrometer. I eventually determined 40% as shown on that hygrometer worked best for me. I don't know what the actual percent was, could have been 35% or 45%. But with that hygrometer a 40% reading worked best. The improvement in hatch rate wasn't that much but there was some. 45% was in that window for most of the eggs. For your homemade incubator 45% might be a good starting point.

I was doing research and i found that some people use cloths for humidity

Different incubators control humidity in different ways. I don't know how some of those work that have dials and settings. Mine and many others control humidity by having water reservoirs inside. They are where the chicks can't get in them as they hatch but they provide water to evaporate and bring the humidity up. The depth of water in these reservoirs doesn't matter, depth just determines how soon they run dry. The water surface area matters. The more wet surface you have the more water evaporates to raise humidity. Mine has four different reservoirs of different sizes. Before I set eggs I ran it with different reservoirs wet to see how they affected humidity. During lockdown, the actual phase when they hatch, you want to raise the humidity. I knew which reservoirs I needed to add water to so I could raise humidity enough.

Since it is wet surface area that controls humidity instead of adding another reservoir, some people put a sponge, paper towel, or a cloth with part of it in a reservoir to wick out water and create more wet surface area. Sometimes that is easier than adding a new reservoir.