someone told me that they dont turn the eggs for the first 4 days the eggs are in the incubator to have a higher hatch rate anyone know anything about this?
Never heard it and it doesn't sound natural. Most folks I know move hatching eggs everyday before they go into the bator!
Well, one is SUPPOSE to store the eggs pointed side down. When one is ready to put them in the bator and it is warming up, the eggs are set at room temperature for 24 hours (stored at 55 or so). Then one is SUPPOSE to put the eggs in the bator pointed side down and either have an automatic turner do the job or start turning at least twice a day. On day 18 one is SUPPOSE to take the turner out or stop turning the eggs and leave them be for hatching. But this is just the part about turning. Then there are are the people who talk about humidity and this goes into a completely diferent arena. One thing most do not talk about is the temperature. 99.5 is always the normal here. I am guessing that this person forgot to turn the eggs for the first 4 days, got lucky and had a great hatch. Yeah, I have hatched out a few with the turner in cuase I forgot.
This Texas A&M document does not mention not turning the eggs the first 4 days in the incubator. It does say you do not have to turn them the first week or so when you are storing them to put in the incubator. I could see where someone could become confused. http://gallus.tamu.edu/Extension publications/b6092.pdf I just saw Rimshoes post and pretty much agree with it. The recommendations are things that improve hatchability. Many people do otherwise and sometimes have great results. For example, some people have hatched eggs that were 4 weeks old. I would not count on it happening often, but it can happen.
