Lockdown Rules Violated by First Chick to Hatch!

[CrossBreederForFun]

So I'm wondering why I read that on day 18 when lockdown begins, that you should tun off or remove whatever egg turning mechanism your incubator employs because "the chick now need to position themselves to hatch". And then close the incubator not to be opened again until the chicks have hatched.

But then the first chick to hatch then flops around and a while later walks around moving the other eggs!

And I'm sure a brooding hen moves her eggs as well.

Seems like a paradox to me.

 

[nuthatched]

A turner turns them more than a hen or a new peep does, the type of turning also make a difference

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The issue on moving into position is about placing the head at the air pocket. This has already happened by the time siblings start playing soccer in there.

 

[Ridgerunner]

So I'm wondering why I read that on day 18 when lockdown begins, that you should tun off or remove whatever egg turning mechanism your incubator employs because "the chick now need to position themselves to hatch". And then close the incubator not to be opened again until the chicks have hatched.

The reason you lock down at Day 18 is that you want the eggs in lockdown mode (because of humidity) before the eggs external pip. It is not that unusual for some eggs to pip a couple of days early. Really nothing to do with turning. You can stop turning them earlier if you want to, but it is convenient to do all of the lockdown stuff at the same time.

Each incubator is different, but many have turners that need to be removed for hatch. Hatching can be a messy business so removing the turners if you can makes them easier to clean. Some turners often have sharp corners where a chick could get hung up after hatch. It depends on which incubator you have but it is often cleaner and safer to remove the turners at lockdown. These rules of thumb don't know what your incubator looks like so they try to cover all bases.

People come up with all kinds of reasons to do certain things. Sometimes they know what they are talking about, sometimes not. Usually it is something they read on this forum and they are just repeating what they read.

I read where people say the chicks rolling the eggs around causes harm pretty regularly on here. I generally ignore those. The way I understand it the commercial hatcheries that hatch several thousand at a time lay the eggs flat for hatch so they get rolled around. If that were a problem they'd come up with something different.