incubator quetsions

[nellynelly]

i have a few general questions regarding incubator design.

1) what is better, hatching eggs vertical (in egg cartons) or laying them on the side? does this matter with chicken breed? i have some very "country" chickens, that i would guess, have never been hatched in a incubator, would this matter?

2) i plan on building a mulit-tired egg turner, the top tier is going to be 50 cm (~1.5' ) from the bottom of teh incubator. should i be worried about that fall? should i close in each tier, or build it like stairs, having the top the smallest, bottom biggest, so that if they decide to go off the edge, the fall would only be 6" or so.

thank you.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It matters not which breed. Chickens are chickens, have evolved the same over thousands of years and have only been artificially incubated for a couple hundred years.
Vertical hatching is preferable (large end up) but they still have to be turned or tilted. Otherwise, the yolk will stick somewhere.
They'll jump around and end up on the bottom so it's best to have a separate hatcher unit or put the eggs on the bottom just prior to hatching.

 

[nellynelly]

they will not all fit on the floor of the incubator. would a 6" fall be to big?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Quote:

i have a few general questions regarding incubator design.

1) what is better, hatching eggs vertical (in egg cartons) or laying them on the side? does this matter with chicken breed? i have some very "country" chickens, that i would guess, have never been hatched in a incubator, would this matter?

2) i plan on building a mulit-tired egg turner, the top tier is going to be 50 cm (~1.5' ) from the bottom of teh incubator. should i be worried about that fall? should i close in each tier, or build it like stairs, having the top the smallest, bottom biggest, so that if they decide to go off the edge, the fall would only be 6" or so.

The vertical egg posission is used for:

A. To get more eggs into an incubator
B. To prevent the eggs from rolling around the incubator like pool balls every time the egg turner cycles on and then off.
C. To insure that each egg is turned an equal number of times.

In commercial hatcheries it is common for day old chicks to fall 3 stories or more, no bad effects has ever been observed. In fact it seems that the fall does them a world of good. Be worried instead about chicks getting caught or entangled in the turning machinery or heat source.
I do hope that your talking about a forced air incubator, because multi-layered still air incubators don't work, or don't work well.

 

[nellynelly]

thank you.

 

[nellynelly]

and yes, it is a forced air system. the heat sources are covered, and the turned motor is a string and couple of mug hooks.