turning by hand

[Akane]

I turn all mine by hand and I have never broken a chicken egg. I did drop a button egg on to the rest and crack 2 but have you seen the size of button eggs?!

Chicken eggs are extremely easy to turn by hand and despite having a still air I've noticed no temp problems. Just don't fill it completely or you'll make it difficult. If you have at least 1 egg width at the top or bottom you can slide one row down to give yourself space to turn the rest and then slide them back up after you turn. Since I have a still air if I really fill it I take the ones in the middle and put them at the bottom and slide the rows in every time I turn or the ones on the edge ended up incubating at a much lower temp. With a forced air or if you only have a dozen eggs that's not a problem. All my chicks have hatched on time so the temps can't be staying that low. I've also had hatch rates up over 90% on my own eggs. Right now I have 20 due thursday that I've turned 3 times a day and candled all alive on sunday. I haven't lost more than 1 or 2 that weren't damaged before they went in the bator.

It's best to turn 3 or 5 times a day. The odd number is so that if you can't turn an even number of hours apart every day the eggs don't spend more time on the same side every day. Turning less than that I always lose more and broke one open that quit on day 7 to find it stuck to the inside of the egg.