"Settling" Shipped Eggs: Necessary? With Auto-Turner?

[aveca]

dont worry , you will be an old hand at this after some practice..some put them in turner at 3 days because the air cells are not bad...the worst ones can still hatch if you give them a chance..they are the kind of on the edge of bubbly ones..let those sit for 7 days..i let them sit if t'hey are pretty sloppy..its just time to heal is all...you will do just fine and will do it by instinct after a while..

 

[chkinut]

its true, my vet gave me a shipped eggs cheat sheet ...they posted it over on the easter egg thread, the same advise is on a redwood incubator web site..the eggs need to sit and rest it isnt so much rough handeling as it isthe 30 thousand ft unpressurised un heated plane ride..like when your ears want to pop that same pressure they beleive detaches the air cell...the fresher the egg the better..the ones that have developed to a point can have DNA scrambled from pressure and cold of the flight..alowing them sit and rest some are able to recover but may quit later on if enough damage.

sitting still in the incubator for up to 7 days allows the embryo to get off to a good start and heal air cell...some they want to sit for up to 10 days....unfortunatly the egg turner does not have a low switch it only tilts, all the way to one side then the other , that can cause problems due to a very sloppy air cell can heal in an odd shape just makes zipping more difficult at hatch time..those are set in ICU unit area of bator in case you need to intervien..you can just raise up one side of the bator just a litttle with a small peice of wood or whatever then switch sides so that you are still moving the embro, just not at such a hard degree that will allow air cell to heal in a good shape.after 6 or 7 days you can just turn the turner right on..

it depends on what region you live in if its really dry you might need to add a little, in styrofoam incubators , they are notorious for drowning chicks..they only add a teaspoon of water then let that go completly dry for 48 hrs ...in styro bators you might not want add any water .just keep watching your air cells..adjust according to that..mine runs between 20 - 30%.. my nephew in england due to thier humid climate never adds water to his incubator..different than here in US, but then they tend to start to beef up humidity around day 16 - 17th to prepare for lockdown,

always hatch shipped eggs in cut down cartons fat eand up.

going back to your post, just to reread and make sure i get everything right in my mind. now the last sentence of the 2nd paragraph, when you say you can just turn the turner on.....are you saying that they have been incubating all this time? or do i turn the turner on AND the bator simultaneously?

 

[curranchickens]

going back to your post, just to reread and make sure i get everything right in my mind. now the last sentence of the 2nd paragraph, when you say you can just turn the turner on.....are you saying that they have been incubating all this time? or do i turn the turner on AND the bator simultaneously?

You are to incubate still and upright for seven days with the turner unplugged. Then after seven days of incubating, you plug in the egg turner so they can begin turning. Then you hatch in egg cartons so that they remain upright.

 

[chkinut]

and another question i have, may be a stupid question.....but when you talk about the pressure in an airplane during shipping.....do all shipped eggs go through that? i try to order my eggs as close to home as possible (which sometimes isn't so close) and i thought they were ground shipped?

 

[chkinut]

You are to incubate still and upright for seven days with the turner unplugged. Then after seven days of incubating, you plug in the egg turner so they can begin turning. Then you hatch in egg cartons so that they remain upright.

thanks! that's cleared up now.

 

[aveca]

You are to incubate still and upright for seven days with the turner unplugged. Then after seven days of incubating, you plug in the egg turner so they can begin turning. Then you hatch in egg cartons so that they remain upright.

yes, this is correct, eggs that are pretty stable can be started at 3 days..the ones that roll all over and almost bubbly need that amout of time (7 days )...some will be damaged internally as well so some may not make it or quit ...that happens in almost any hatch due to a genetic glitch or only God knows, but this way you get a larger percentage of those damaged shipped eggs hatched and in a brooder. you paid money for them...might as well enjoy them..

 

[chickmashnoon]

So, I candled all mine and I know which ones are loose, and there are some that are semi loose, and the ones that appear to be okay. I'm thinking of letting the totally loose ones sit for the 7 days, and the semi for 3 and letting the rest sit in the auto turner. The turning slats are removable. I have identifying marks on all and a written description documented for each egg listing air cell mobility, amount of staining on egg, dappleing or tranlucence, rough or smoothness, large or small for each breed, and their origin. I don't have a scale to document weight, but I hope to by next hatch. I don't think I will candle them until 10 days in.

I have 16 silkie eggs, 18 serama, 9 LaFleche, 2 Cream Legbar and two of my own mutts for a kinda control set. Wish me luck! Aveca, thanks for all the advice- it makes me feel more comfortable knowing someone has used this info for hatching parrots and that a vet reccommended it. I read all sorts of conflicting opinions and see stuff about just throwing out ones with loose air cells, but I reallyreally really want my La Fleche and Legbars and they seem to be the worst off so I'm setting them anyway. They are going to get the 7 day treatment and I will report back on whether it works. I will know which ones have loose cells and which don't and I hope to get ahold of a bunch of the plastic berry baskets so I can corral the eggs into identifiable groups so I can narrow down who hatches and how well. Thankfully my hatch day will be a saturday and I will be home. My friend and I are going to have a hatching party (or sobfest- depends on how it goes) and I will try to give you guys some feedback on whether the 7 day no turning in the incubator helped.

Any reccomendations on what I should serve for our hatching party? Are deviled eggs too ironic?

 

[NYRIR]

HeeHee....deviled eggs would work great I think!

chickmashmoon....how did you know the severity of the air cell damage? I have never seen it so I'm hoping you can describe it for me.

Wow, cream legbars.....NICE.

 

[aveca]

let me go see exatly where he posted it, he wrote me a while ago for it..probably use search incubation cheat sheet for shipped eggs..

 

[chkinut]

ok, i haven't started incubation cuz i'm still waiting for my EE eggs to come in the mail (which they were suppose to be here today but didn't come

). anyway, my shipped silkie eggs have been sitting large end up, undisturbed for 36 hours or so. i didn't want to candle them again, but i washed my hands and candled very carefully and took a pencil and wrote "L" for loose air cells, and "I" for irregular air cells, and i wrote nothing if they were fine. out of 16 eggs i have 6 good eggs

, 5 irregulars, and 5 loose....out of the loose guys i have 2 that are REALLY loose (i even wrote "really L" on the egg) and 1 that is loose and possibly a bad egg cuz i saw a small strip of faint blood in there (i wrote "L bad?" on it). but i'm going to give it a chance. so i will have the loose ones not turn for 7 days, and the irregulars not turn for 3 day. i have the healthy looking ones in the turner now with the local eggs and the turner is on. do you guys think that's a good idea?