Lockdown with egg turner trays inside of incubator but not turning. Could it work?

[MichaelZA]

Hi guys.
So I started out with a old school still air incubator that worked fine but alot of work and then bought a 3 tray forced air incubator from hhd. My first hatch in the hhd i only used one tray (120 eggs) and it was a total disaster i hatched 5 out of 60 chicken eggs and 20 out of 60 quail eggs.

Now a few things went wrong along the way the first thing was loadshedding where the power goes out and i have to rush from work to start the generator. This happened a few times.
My other problem is having to fill the awkward water trays on the side I have now decided that i am going to scrap the warranty and drill small holes in the side so i can add water without having to open the incubator and then plug the holes somehow.
Also I wont do a mixed hatch again because the quail can only stay in the incubator for 24 hours where as the chickens can stay in for 72, I think every time i opened the incubator to remove the quail all of the humidity would escape because of the huge lid that i had to remove.

I opened all the failed hatched eggs after about 3 days after day 21 and a lot of them had fully developed dead chicks inside that just did not hatch. All these things could have contributed to the failed hatch but i think the problem was removing the egg turning trays. They do not remove easily and you have to remove all the eggs first and then you remove the tray and then put back all the eggs. It takes about 15min and you lose all your heat and humidity. I uploaded some photos of the incubator to give you guys a better idea of what i mean.

Now my Question is can I leave the egg turning trays inside tilted to the one side or upright? I know they might get stuck or hurt but the trays have no sharp edges and i don't think they will get stuck easily. The Chicks could fall inside the water trays but i am going to put a mesh over the water trays to avoid that from happening.
The trays are so hard to remove that it makes me think that they were never intended for removal.

 

[MichaelZA]

Please note that the picture of the turning trays does not have the mount with motor on.

 

[Mosey2003]

Well, I personally wouldn't use that particular incubator. But I suppose that's beside the point.

Are you really needing to hatch that many at one time? It would be faster to leave one or two of the trays without racks and just swap the eggs into it at lockdown.

 

[MichaelZA]

Well, I personally wouldn't use that particular incubator. But I suppose that's beside the point.

Are you really needing to hatch that many at one time? It would be faster to leave one or two of the trays without racks and just swap the eggs into it at lockdown.

I think I am going to try that. Its just a pain not being able to use the incubator to its maximum potential. I am thinking of selling it after a few hatches and buying a Local built incubator from SureHatch.

 

[HatchCraft]

Hi guys.
So I started out with a old school still air incubator that worked fine but alot of work and then bought a 3 tray forced air incubator from hhd. My first hatch in the hhd i only used one tray (120 eggs) and it was a total disaster i hatched 5 out of 60 chicken eggs and 20 out of 60 quail eggs.

Now a few things went wrong along the way the first thing was loadshedding where the power goes out and i have to rush from work to start the generator. This happened a few times.
My other problem is having to fill the awkward water trays on the side I have now decided that i am going to scrap the warranty and drill small holes in the side so i can add water without having to open the incubator and then plug the holes somehow.
Also I wont do a mixed hatch again because the quail can only stay in the incubator for 24 hours where as the chickens can stay in for 72, I think every time i opened the incubator to remove the quail all of the humidity would escape because of the huge lid that i had to remove.

I opened all the failed hatched eggs after about 3 days after day 21 and a lot of them had fully developed dead chicks inside that just did not hatch. All these things could have contributed to the failed hatch but i think the problem was removing the egg turning trays. They do not remove easily and you have to remove all the eggs first and then you remove the tray and then put back all the eggs. It takes about 15min and you lose all your heat and humidity. I uploaded some photos of the incubator to give you guys a better idea of what i mean.

Now my Question is can I leave the egg turning trays inside tilted to the one side or upright? I know they might get stuck or hurt but the trays have no sharp edges and i don't think they will get stuck easily. The Chicks could fall inside the water trays but i am going to put a mesh over the water trays to avoid that from happening.
The trays are so hard to remove that it makes me think that they were never intended for removal.

Never saw that incubator before, had to look it up. Very novel design, though I question how well the air would circulate. If the incubator is good quality you could use it as the setter and get a separate unit to use as a hatcher. It is always better to use a dedicated hatcher.