Do not turn eggs??? What do you think???

[GM99]

Well, I know for a fact they need to be moved around some or they'll most likely die. How do I know this? Someone I know forgot to plug in the turner on an entire bator load of eggs shipped from several different locations. ALL perished and they had candled okay at the beginning. None pipped. So, I would NOT chance that!

Interesting take on "I know for a fact..." I likewise know of several people who deliberately do not turn their eggs or got busy and forgot about the incubator set in the back room and never turned them, never added water, and one day wondered where the peeping was coming from...only to discover an incubator with hatching chicks...and every one hatched fine!

In fact, here is the quote from the one individual alluded to above...
"
I turn my eggs (preferably with auto turners).
However, I had a most interesting experience once.
This was decades ago, and I had one of those round Hovabator incubators, which required manual turning.
One day, I set it up in a back room, filled it with eggs from my White Leghorn flock, and promptly forgot all about it (ok, so I was very busy!).
No turning, no adding water, nothing. I didn't remember it was there until one day when I heard some peeping and followed it to the source.
I kid you not, 100% of those eggs hatched healthy, vigorous chicks! I was astonished! :O
I have occasionally gotten 100% hatches, but it's really rare. I think that was the first time I ever got a 100% hatch.
That experience did not make me stop turning eggs, but it does make me wonder..."

 

[Getshook]

Interesting Article Almost Worth Trying It Out
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Break a cherished tradition: quit turning those eggs in the incubator.(hatching poultry eggs)
Countryside & Small Stock Journal - July 1, 1996
D.L. Salsbury

Word count: 1998.
citation details
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I congratulate Pete Alberda for his article "How To Hatch Eggs In An Incubator" in the March/April issue of COUNTRYSIDE. It contained a lot of very valuable tips and information for those unfamiliar with the operation of an incubator.
I do not wish to detract from the article in any manner because it accurately reflects the currently popular consensus regarding operation of an incubator, including the necessity to turn the eggs. It is the latter which may be scientifically invalid, and on which I wish to offer comment.
Myth becomes fact
It's a documented fact that if one repeats a myth often enough and long enough, it becomes an unquestionable belief. Once attaining this status, it continues to be passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and in print, even when it may contradict sense and experience.
Is this the case with the necessity to turn poultry eggs in an incubator once or twice a day? Ask anyone knowledgeable in the field and they will respond emphatically that yes, eggs must be turned daily. However, scientific evidence and common sense do not support this thesis. They strongly suggest that it may be nothing more than a universally accepted myth that has gone unchallenged for more than a century.
A course in embryology
Almost 38 years ago, I was an aspiring pre-veterinary student fresh out of the Army. One of the required pre-vet courses was a 5-credit hour class in embryology. This, I was to painfully discover, was the first of a series of "flunk-out" courses designed to weed out the "wannabe" vet students and send them flying to their counselor for a transfer to the "School of Fine Arts and Parties." Academically, it was one tough course!
The course was taught by Dr. H.T. Gier (PhD). Dr. Gier was the country's leading authority on chicken and coyote embryology (admittedly a weird combination), and was author of the most advanced textbook on the subject of chicken embryology. His experimental work in the field was extensive. One of his discoveries was that a clutch of 100 eggs sprayed daily with testosterone (male hormone) or estrogen (female hormone) during incubation would respectively produce 100% roosters or 100% hens. So, as you might surmise, his beginning course concentrated on the developmental embryology of the chick in exquisitely fine detail!
A feud between experts
For over 30 years, Dr. Gier had a running but fairly friendly feud with the Poultry Science Department at Kansas State University. He claimed that not only was it not necessary to turn the eggs, but that it was also detrimental to the developing embryo. At the same time, we were required to take a pre-vet course in "poultry science." The poultry science instructor vigorously argued the opposite stand and made numerous guarded references to the so-called expert (Dr. Gier) at the academic end of the campus.
Over the years, Dr. Gier had hatched out tens upon tens of thousands of eggs for his class work and his post-graduate students in a commercial incubator with an automatic egg turning mechanism turned off... and, he obtained all his fertile eggs from the Poultry Department. Likewise, the Poultry Department hatched out thousands of eggs from the same source, in the same type of incubators with the egg turning mechanism in full functioning order.
Well guess what boys and girls. Much to his surprise and much to the ire of the Poultry Department, Dr. Gier's hatching percentage was consistently 6-8% better than that of the "poultry experts." Most of his "batches" had an unheard of 99-100% hatching percentage.
Birds and reptiles
Birds are direct evolutionary offspring of reptiles. In fact, the vestigial "scales" can still be seen on their legs (feathers are modified scales also). They also share the reptiles' genetic trait of having nucleated red blood cells and laying eggs. From the age of dinosaurs to the present, reptiles have been successfully hatching eggs for millions of years without turning them by burying them in sand, mud, decaying vegetation, etc. and simply walking away.
The egg turning myth
The "turning eggs" myth was one of Dr. Gier's biggest pet peeves. When the course got to the point that we were studying the attachment of the amniotic sack to the internal shell membrane (more on this later), he would devote half a lecture to the subject. His story went something like this:
Answer these questions
"How many of you (students) come from the farm and have observed chickens or ducks setting on a nest?" (About a dozen of us raised our hands.) "Under natural conditions, a hen lays her eggs in a concave nest of straw, grass, or plain dirt, right?" (Answer: Yes, we had all seen that.) "And due to the shape of the nest, the eggs naturally roll tightly together, right?" (Answer: Yes.) "Have you ever seen a hen pick up her eggs with her bill or her feet, and turn them one by one or physically arrange them?" (Answer: No, we hadn't.) "And often those eggs in a natural nest are somewhat stuck to the bottom with mud or manure where turning would be almost impossible, right?" (Answer: Yes.) "Now, when the hen has been off the nest and goes to sit back down, she straddles the nest and comes to rest in a series of rocking motions, right?" (Answer: Yes.) "Now, do you think that hen is turning those eggs one by one underneath her, or simply attempting to get comfortable and spread her body and feathers over the clutch of eggs to maximize her body heat area?" (Answer: Geez, I don't know... never thought about it that way.) "Now for you Doubting Thomas's in the class, think about this. A chicken has a grasping foot, it can roost on a limb and could conceivably "grasp" an egg, right?" (Answer: Yes.) "But what about waterfowl? Do you really think a clumsy flat-footed duck could grasp an egg with any dexterity?" (Answer: No, heck, they can barely climb over a short obstacle.) His next question was the clincher, "Would you like to hear how this egg-turning myth got started?" (Answer: Yes, we would.)
He went on to explain that he didn't know when or where the myth of the hen-turning-the-eggs got started. However, about the turn of the century a college professor in some ag school designed an experiment to prove that hens actually did turn their eggs. (Bad science already. One does not set out to prove his or her opinion; one designs a scientific experiment to answer the question, yes or no!)
How it started
According to the story, our illustrious professor whom I shall refer to as "Dr. Turner Glassbowl," put a clutch of eggs in a clear glass bowl with the approximate curvature of a natural nest and put the bowl in a glass enclosed cage. The eggs were marked, so they could tell if any of them shifted from their original upright position. A setting hen was put in the cage and a cadre of students was assigned to observe the hen in shifts, 24 hours a day, until the chicks hatched. Their assignment was to make notes of every observation including how often and how much the eggs were "turned."
As you might surmise, as the hen would enter or leave her glass bowl nest, the act of walking on them would cause them to rotate in the slick bowl like a bunch of interconnected ball bearings. Furthermore, when she would re-enter the nest and "scrunch around" before settling down, the eggs would again rotate because of this ball bearing phenomenon. There was no evidence that the hen made any conscientious effort to turn the eggs with her feet or bill other than the pressure exerted from her weight in this "frictionless" environment.
As a result of this "scientific experiment," it was concluded that a hen, under "natural" conditions would turn her eggs twice a day. The results were apparently published and the "facts" subsequently spread by word of mouth. From that day forth the incubator manufacturers added the egg turning mechanism to their products, and "knowledgeable" people in the field began to tell the less knowledgeable that they must turn the eggs while hatching in an incubator. Imagine, all of this from assuming that the events that occur in a slick glass bowl are the same as those that occur in a straw nest. The fable has been told ever since without question.
Why egg-turning is detrimental
Now back to the amniotic sack. There is enough air in the egg by natural diffusion through the shell to support early embryonic development, but the chick soon outgrows this meager supply. Additional outside sources of oxygen are desperately needed at this point (imagine trying to breathe through an egg shell).
This is where the amniotic sack comes in. The amniotic sack is a thin membrane with blood vessels attached directly to the embryo's circulatory system that begins to develop early during gestation (incubation). In a manner of speaking, it is the "lung" for the developing embryo. As it grows, it floats upward toward the inside of the shell. In order to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide back and forth between the inside of the egg and the outside environment, it must attach to the inner lining of the egg. Any excessive movement of the egg/embryo at this critical point is likely to prevent the normal attachment of the amnion to the egg. The short of it is, if the attachment is disturbed or prevented, the embryo will suffocate. These are the fertile embryos that turn black after a week or so.
This explains why you observe "good" eggs going "bad" during early incubation if you are a hard-core "egg turner." It goes without saying that this is not an all or none phenomenon. Most fertile eggs will hatch no matter how many times they are turned, but it can make the difference between a medium to good hatch and a great one.
Practical experience
My wife Betty always has had better-than-average luck hatching duck eggs in an incubator. In fact, her first experience with a borrowed incubator was twice as good as the owner's experience with it. Just to try out Dr. Gier's premise, I ask her (without telling her that I was writing this article), what her procedure was. She said that she turned them several times a day during the first 2 or 3 days just to make sure that they got plenty of water all around and then didn't touch them again except to replenish the water. She also said that she always made sure that the big end of the egg was "up" because that's where the ducklings broke out. (For what it's worth, she also voiced an opinion that she believed that duck hens always lay more eggs than they really intend to hatch, because they use the eggs in the outside ring as a temperature barrier for the eggs in the middle.)
So much for science, myth, common beliefs and practice. I'm not trying to convert the hard-core egg-turners of this world, just trying to add a little science and common sense to a procedure that mother nature has been doing successfully for millions of years before man decided to "improve" upon it. One thing for certain though, if you purchase a new incubator or ask an "experienced" friend for help, you will most assuredly get advice and instructions based on "Dr. Glassbowl's" scientific discovery!


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Citation Details
Title: Break a cherished tradition: quit turning those eggs in the incubator.(hatching poultry eggs)
Author: D.L. Salsbury
Publication: Countryside & Small Stock Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 1996
Publisher: Countryside Publications Ltd.
Volume: v80 Issue: n4 Page: p43(3)

Well I hope your right! I just went out to my incubator where I have 104 out of 120 quail eggs to “lock it down” on day 14. When doing so I noticed that I had forgotten to plug in the egg turner. The eggs were kept at 55% humidity on average and the only time they were moved was when I briefly removed them one by one to candle them. They have been sitting in the near upright position with large end up all this time.
I collected my eggs over a 12 day timeframe from 11 hens and I marked the day collected on each egg to see if it matters how long they sit at room temperature before incubating. Anyhow, if snyone is interested you can check back in a week to find my results.
Fred S.

 

[Lizzy733]

I personally, prefer to mimic nature. My hen may not be turning her eggs on a schedule, but she does move them around the nest to better regulate their temperatures. Ever so often, she'd duck her head down and move someone from the middle to the side and scoot someone else down in their place.

My incubator has been pretty good (for a cheap Chinese Bator), but hot and cold spots do occasionally pop up, so I've taken to rearranging my eggs every other day, moving the inside eggs to the outside and avoiding areas where the temps seem to fluctuate the most.

I've not been shy about candling regularly too. My hen would be spending a bit of time off the nest and I've heard word that the occasional cooling-warming can actually benefit the growing embryo, so why not?

So far, the little buggers I can see are active, growing, and losing weight at an appropriate rate. Hopefully, it will get easier with my darker eggs soon too, though most seem to be thriving there as well.

My incubator turns every 2 hours, so why not? It definitely doesn't seem to be doing them any harm.