Incubating and discouraged

[RosieR]

Well it’s lockdown day. I candled again and I’m feeling as discouraged as ever. There’s really no eggs that i am confident that there is a chick inside.
But I dutifully placed a big tray of water in there and set eggs in baskets to hatch out.
I’ll be doing an eggtopsy next week to see if I can figure out what happened.
As a side note how does a brand name egg turner work? Is it timed to rock eggs from one side to the other at certain intervals or do they just do rotation extremely slowly?

 

[le_bwah]

Well it’s lockdown day. I candled again and I’m feeling as discouraged as ever. There’s really no eggs that i am confident that there is a chick inside.
But I dutifully placed a big tray of water in there and set eggs in baskets to hatch out.
I’ll be doing an eggtopsy next week to see if I can figure out what happened.
As a side note how does a brand name egg turner work? Is it timed to rock eggs from one side to the other at certain intervals or do they just do rotation extremely slowly?

Most egg turners just tip them slowly from side to side. A lot of people find them convenient, especially if you are incubating a ton of eggs.

Don't be too discouraged! You might not know you have anything until somebody pops out. Give them time. Then, if they're running late and you're nervous, you can always float test them.

 

[RosieR]

Most egg turners just tip them slowly from side to side. A lot of people find them convenient, especially if you are incubating a ton of eggs.

Don't be too discouraged! You might not know you have anything until somebody pops out. Give them time. Then, if they're running late and you're nervous, you can always float test them.

I’ll leave them for sure, I’m just not expecting much
I wonder if I can add a dimmer switch to my egg turner to make it slow down... it runs so quickly I’m worried the poor eggs got scrambled or something.

 

[RosieR]

Maybe I’ll try setting a few of my own birds eggs as an experiment before buying more. I only have 3 laying hens atm. My roo is pretty awkward at mounting tho so I’m not sure how fertile they are. He’s a gentle soul tho so I kept him

 

[Erkenstein]

I would definitely hatch your own eggs. I collect eggs over seven days and keep them in a cooler, turning them a few times a day, at 65 degrees until I set them. Even with only three hens, you can collect and set around 20 eggs. From there it's exponential!

 

[Sara L]

Maybe I’ll try setting a few of my own birds eggs as an experiment before buying more. I only have 3 laying hens atm. My roo is pretty awkward at mounting tho so I’m not sure how fertile they are. He’s a gentle soul tho so I kept him

I usually try to set a few of my own eggs whenever I hatch eggs that were shipped. Kind of like a control group so I know if there is trouble with the hatch whether it was due to the egg source or the incubator.
I hope your eggs make it!

 

[RosieR]

I would definitely hatch your own eggs. I collect eggs over seven days and keep them in a cooler, turning them a few times a day, at 65 degrees until I set them. Even with only three hens, you can collect and set around 20 eggs. From there it's exponential!

Ok I’ll start keeping them and I’ll set more next week

 

[Flamens Farm]

I bought an egg turner with my first incubator, after 3 failed attempts of only 5 or 7 eggs out of 30 hatching I did away with the turner and turn them myself, now I get close to 20 out of 30. My turner might have been defective.

 

[RosieR]

I bought an egg turner with my first incubator, after 3 failed attempts of only 5 or 7 eggs out of 30 hatching I did away with the turner and turn them myself, now I get close to 20 out of 30. My turner might have been defective.

Maybe the turner is part of the problem then..

 

[Erkenstein]

If there were a problem with the turner, it wouldn't prevent development of a fertile egg unless it were somehow jerking the eggs around and scrambling them. You'd more likely have a turner that was moving too slow and would have problems with embryos sticking to one side of the egg. I would do some observation: check on the turner every half hour and note the position of the racks. I think my turner does a full turn in two hours.