Egg orientation and auto turners question

[mattdv]

Whats better, rolling egg turner or a rocking style?

Newb here but have been doing a lot of reading. From a lot of what I have read it sounds like eggs should be placed big point down in a rocking style auto turner. But I have found a few videos showing an auto turner that rolls the eggs back and forth that claim a good success rate. I am bulding a DIY incubator and need some help on this end. Thanks

Matt

 

[TwoCrows]

Eggs should be placed tilted large end up slightly. Imagine the rocking of a ship, back and forth, back and forth. This is how you turn eggs, rock to one side, and then the other. Never turn them completely 360 degrees around.

You can put a line or x on the egg. Place the egg so that the x is showing on the left side of the egg, big end tilted up. When you turn that egg next time, the x will be turned to the right side still showing. Turn them as many times a day as you can. Most professional hatcheries turn eggs once an hour, but turn yours at LEAST 3 times per day, more if you can.

 

[mattdv]

Thanks for the reply TwoCrows. In regards to the amount of times turned, I've generally read that they are to be turned a few times a day. And this seems to be how a lot of the DIY projects are set up. Have you tried both ways? With the timer I'm thinking of it would work any way but just curious. Regards,
Matt

 

[TwoCrows]

The reason you turn eggs is that the embryo can only lay in one spot and feed on what is available to it there. But after a several hours, they can consume all the nutrients in that spot and then if the egg is not turned, the embryo can get starved out of nutrients it does need. It doesn't hurt to turn the eggs more, but not turning enough in a 24 hour period is very harmful to the development of the chick. Not enough nutrients can cause all kinds of deformities and poor brain development.

So try to turn them at least 4 times a day preferably more.

 

[Varglet]

In my personal experience, I had a better hatch rate when the eggs were laying on their side and I had to hand turn them (home-made incubator). But I won't go back to that now that I have a factory built incubator with an auto turner (eggs sitting in upright position), I just don't know if I'll be around when the eggs need turning. But if you are building an auto turner, you can choose which one you want.

 

[mattdv]

Sweet Thanks for the info. I am probably going to try a rolling turner to start(kind of like the one in this youtube video

) because it'll get me started and looks fairly simple to make.