Why can i not turn eggs in the last 3 days of incubation?

[RochfoKev]

Hi, I'm on day 16 of my first chicken egg incubation, i was reading that the eggs should not be turned in the last 3 days and was wondering why this is and what would happen if they do get turned?

 

[Fred's Hens]

The conventional wisdom says to NOT turn them, of course. This allow the chick to position itself. Peck its way out. Constantly turning the chick's world round and round wouldn't be something that would helpful to that process. That said, once a chick is out it tends to bump and rattles around its mates and play bowling with the other eggs. LOL

Still, the chicks need this time to work their way into position and to exit the shell. This provides them with best chance.

 

[RochfoKev]

That makes sense, thanks for the quick reply

 

[Ridgerunner]

You really don’t need to turn chicken eggs after about 14 days. It’s vital that you turn them early in incubation. Sumi recently posted a long list of things that turning is needed for but by two weeks all that stuff has been taken care of and turning is no longer required. It won’t do any harm, but it’s convenient to stop turning them when you up the humidity and go into lockdown. That’s the main reason the two are tied together, convenience.

The best reasons I can come up with to stop turning is that you don’t want to open the incubator the last three days because of the humidity so it’s really hard to turn by hand. You aren’t doing any good and you may do harm, not because of the turning but by opening the incubator.

If you have an automatic turner, those chicks are going to slime everything when they hatch and crawl around wet. I take my automatic turner out to make clean-up a whole lot easier, especially around the motor part.

It depends a bit on what your automatic turner looks like, but it is possible there are narrow places a chick could get a leg, wing, or neck trapped. That could injure or kill the chick, especially if that turner is still turning.

Some people think the egg being turned would mess up the chick when it is trying to get into position to hatch, especially for internal pip. I don’t think it does, but I really don’t know.

To me, it sounds like you may have some unique situation, but turning during the last few days is totally not necessary and may do some harm. So I don’t do it.

 

[piouspekin]

I have found that the best option is to have another incubator on standby and as soon as the little one hatches I put it into the other incubator to dry out and sleep this way the other eggs aren't thrown around the incubator but a chick trying to take its first steps, I feel like this can cause issues with chicks that are starting to hatch as they get disorientated.