New to Chickens- Need Some Info on Incubating

[theturtlepond]

I have hatched snake eggs before but those aren't like chicken eggs. When turning the eggs do you rotate 45 degrees to the right then back into the oringinal position then 45 degrees to the left or do you keep turning the same direction? Does it matter weather the eggs point up or lay down? Where do you store them while saving up enough to incubate during the summer? How warm should a Hovabator incubator be kept? What is lock down? Thanks for your help.

 

[spikennipper]

Rotating 45 degrees right and then 45 degrees left is fine, that is what my Brinsea does and I have had some great hatches, the eggs can either be positioned large end up for incubation or on their sides there is no big difference in hatch rates doing it either way, I have had a tough week trying to keep my eggs cool this week ready for setting too! what I did was place them in an egg tray in a poly box with an ice pack underneath and a digital thermometer on top the temp stayed around 14 degrees c still a bit higher than ideal but better than the 27 degrees the room was reading! make sure the eggs are at room temp though before placing them in the incubator.
Chicken eggs should be incubated at around 37.5 degrees c but this depends on whether you have a still air or fan assisted incubator, lock down is the last 3 days of incubation when the chick is getting ready to hatch this is where you up the humidity from 40% to 65% via adding water to troughs or wet sponges etc and then keep the incubator closed for the 3 days until after hatching, opening the incubator during lock down can be risky as all the moist air will be lost which may affect the chicks ability to hatch easily from the egg.

 

[lotz2612]

Dont know about which way to turn them...dont think it matters to be honest with you...after all...hens don thave a petractor!

Have a look at this website i found...http://www.howtoincubate.com/ It looks pretty old but im sure the techniques are more or less the same.

Have fun!