Question about egg position during incubation

MS_pond

Chirping
Dec 7, 2023
89
179
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Hi all, I have a question regarding incubation which I can't seem to find a solid answer on. These are Muscovy eggs if it matters.

When lockdown begins and autoturner is turned off, do I need to ensure the air cells are facing up, like so:

1000013661.jpg


Or does it not matter?

Follow-on question: Do it need to do this BEFORE the first egg internally pips, or can I wait until immediately after the first internal pip? As in, after I see an internal pip, I then make the air cells face up and stop turning the eggs? This question feels especially important for muscovy eggs because they seem to have a wider range of days to hatch. So I don't want to stop turning too early if they're going to be late hatchers. (My girl took 40 days to hatch her eggs, for example. This however is my first time incubating eggs.)

I'd love any insight! Thank you. I'll update this post with cute ducklings if all goes well.
 
Update as promised: out of four eggs that made it past three weeks, three peepers successfully hatched!!

The fourth egg was horribly malpositioned. I tried to help but I think I fumbled it. Couldn't find his beak to make a safety hole, no bruise on the shell to give me any hints, decided to put the egg back to let him absorb more veins before I tried to pull his head out through the air cell. Came back to find him dead. Sorry little guy. Rest in peace.

Edit: for context, I knew something was up when he still hadn't internally pipped 1.5 days after the others had, and looked "off" when candling. So I opened up the air cell to see what was going on.
 

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