Brinsea Ovation incubator - setting eggs

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

Hi, I was going to post this in the Incubation section but it's specific to quail eggs so I thought I'd have y'all look at it first.

I just set 110 "hatchery choice" Coturnix eggs, which have a significant variation in size and shape, in the "large egg" carriers with the "small egg" dividers (I know, not exactly intuitive here) in my spiffy new Brinsea Ovation 56 EX incubator. I can't tell from the Brinsea manual or video whether the eggs are meant to sit touching the floor of the carrier, or be held above it between the carrier side and the divider, or if it isn't important either way. I'm probably overthinking this, but I don't want the larger eggs to be cracked from the pressure, or the smaller one to get booted out of the carrier during turning.

Also I set the 9 uncracked out of the 10 "bonus" eggs from the hatchery on the incubator floor, opposite the humidity pads. I plan to turn them manually until candling on Day 6, then they can take the place of any clears. Good idea, or no?

Thanks!

 

[muddy75]

The brinsea large egg carriers can be tricky. I actually damaged some large eggs the first time I used them. It sounds like you have them in there properly. I have put extras outside the turners as well so you should be okay as long as they are out of the way of the automatic turner. If you upload a picture, that can be helpful.

Have you hatched in this incubator before???? Do you have accessory thermometer/hygrometer and instruments tested for accuracy???? My temp was really close out of the box, but built in hygrometer is about 10% off. I’ve not yet hooked up the auto humidity pump. But I’ve been getting 80+% hatch rates.

 

[FloorCandy]

It sounds like you did fine. I have also found that the quail trays with double rows can crack eggs, and for some larger eggs, I’ll put the divider in a bit diagonally and put small eggs on the opposite end/side as large. I also put In extras and hand turn until candling, quite often. the ones sitting lower on the floor instead of the trays will probably hatch half a day to a day later due to the small temp difference.

 

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

Thank you, both! This is my first time using this incubator. My previous incubation experience was chicken, turkey, and guinea eggs in a Hova-Bator, and that was maybe 10 years ago. I thought about pics after the fact, so to speak, because I was impatient about getting the eggs going. I did check the thermometer with my scientific wand-type thermometer and it was spot on. I don't have a hygrometer to verify humidity, but the pump seems to work fine.