Automatic Egg Turner

[GrayDragon]

My mother in law is planning on getting me an incubator, and wanted to know just how important adding on an automatic egg turner is? She feels if it isn't that important, she'd rather get me some stuff for the brooder instead.

Truth is, I honestly don't know. I really don't plan on ever having more than a dozen or so eggs in the incubator at once. How difficult is it to manually turn? I have a little 3-egg incubator, but I've never actually used it before.

She's planning on getting a GQF Hova-Bator Thermal Air Flow Egg Incubator.

 

[speckledhen]

It is a pain to hand-turn a bator-full of eggs. You must be home for almost 3 weeks to turn them at least 3 times a day and when you do, you let heat and humidity out, though it does come back up quickly. I just like the turner myself, but some prefer to hand turn them. If you have a dozen or so, it's not a big deal, but you do have to be home to do it.

 

[GrayDragon]

I'm currently a work at home mom, so the being home to deal with it issue isn't a problem.

 

[speckledhen]

Then, why not try to hand turn them the first time and later, if you want, you can always get a turner.

 

[GrayDragon]

Getting the first eggs from a BYC member, didn't want to be without an auto-turner if the negative impact was substantial, so, decided to ask first

 

[shelleyd2008]

Personally I like the turner. I'm home most all the time, but I would forget to do it a lot. I disagree that you 'have' to stay home to do it. Obviously you can't go away for a few days, which is what I assume speckledhen was referring to, but if you did work outside of the home, you could turn them before you leave, then again as soon as you got back, then before bed.

I think the only ones I've ever hand-turned completely were duck eggs, and it seems as if the hand-turned duck eggs did better than duck eggs in a turner. Any other type of egg, there wasn't that much of a difference.

I would also do as speckledhen said, and start without one if you wish. You can always get one later on.

 

[speckledhen]

It's really just a personal preference.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I'm lazy, guess which way I do it.

 

[shelleyd2008]

A friend of mine has a couple of big incubators, I believe they hold like 400 eggs. He hand turns all of them

No way!!

The incubators are not cabinets though, the eggs are all on the same level. He cheats, and just rolls the eggs around a bit with his palm.