August Hatch along?

[Pugsabi]

I have a question.
My eggs are in a carton right now for easy turning. Should we take them out at lockdown and lay them flat? I've seen a few talk about this, some prefer to leave them in the carton. Mostly I worry a hatched chick will knock the eggs around and roll them over.
Also, I already noticed a dip in the air cell. If I were to lay them flat for hatching, would I want that dip facing upward?

I've seen it either way. I lay them in their side because that's how my Brinsea does it. Plus that's how they are in a nest, but other people have had great success leaving them in the carton.
Here's a thread discussing this topic.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-do-you-position-your-eggs-during-lock-down.631295/

 

[anvia]

first chick hatched overnight! Yay!

 

[anvia]

I have a question.
My eggs are in a carton right now for easy turning. Should we take them out at lockdown and lay them flat? I've seen a few talk about this, some prefer to leave them in the carton. Mostly I worry a hatched chick will knock the eggs around and roll them over.
Also, I already noticed a dip in the air cell. If I were to lay them flat for hatching, would I want that dip facing upward?

I don’t have the answer I’m afraid! But I can give you my experience if it helps - I’m currently troubleshooting our incubator - the manual says to arrange them vertically & then lay flat at lock down. We did this for our last two hatches and had over 75% late stage egg deaths - it’s awful to get them so far and then somehow get it very very wrong so late on. I’m suspicious its because we changed their orientation on lockdown - did fluid move inside the egg & drown them when we laid the eggs flat?
So this current hatch we’ve ignored the manual and we have had the eggs flat throughout, give me another 24/48 hrs and I can tell you if we’ve got a better hatch rate.
I hope that helps - I’d be tempted to keep your eggs in the same orientation throughout... I’m convinced we’ve previously managed to drown ours very late stage by laying the egg down on lockdown when it was previously standing up.... but I could be wrong, my other suspicion is I’ve got the humidity wrong in lockdown...

 

[Sakai]

first chick hatched overnight! Yay!

So exciting! Keep us posted!

 

[dpenning]

I went to put my Peking eggs in lockdown and found I have two external pips already! So far six of six appear viable. Will be interesting. One I’m not sure about but will wait and see.

 

[Amiloo928]

We are about 5 hours from the start of Day 18, and at least three of the eggs are already rockin and rolling. Should I turn off the auto turner now, or give it the extra few hours? I’m afraid if disorienting the chicks if they are already starting to move about in the shell.

 

[dpenning]

We are about 5 hours from the start of Day 18, and at least three of the eggs are already rockin and rolling. Should I turn off the auto turner now, or give it the extra few hours? I’m afraid if disorienting the chicks if they are already starting to move about in the shell.

I would go ahead and turn it off. 4 of my six duck eggs have pipped yesterday and one had pipped before I got around to turning off my autoturner. Of course duck eggs are slow.... so each has an extra little pip bump this morning. If they were chickens or quail i'd already have babies!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have 8 eggs due to hatch at 8 PM tomorrow night but I already have a pip and several eggs cheeping at me.
Temps have tended to run high about 2/3 of the time.
4 more eggs are due this coming Sunday.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

There's already 2 out and one zipping from the eggs due in 16 hours.

 

[Perris]

yay