Anybody not turn eggs day 2-3?

[Derrick]

I placed eggs in my bator this past Wed a then added a few more Thursday 5pm. I manually leveled the bator to add them and forgot to turn the auto turner on…. I checked them now and noticed them level!!! Turned the auto turner back on. Question? Has anybody done this at this stage of incubation and what results did you have? I’m kind of stuck waiting it out as I’m timing the hatch to some shipped chicks coming at the end of the month…

 

[HoneyBeeHomestead]

I wouldn't worry too much. Many people use "no turn" methods, where they don't turn the eggs at all throughout incubation and still get great hatch rates. I packed my incubator with eggs once and tried it. I still got good results, but I don't remember the exact percentage. I'd definitely recommend using a turner, but a few days of not turning won't affect them much.

 

[Derrick]

We will see.. I’ll candle day11 and report results. I’ll also report results of hatch

 

[casportpony]

We turn the eggs so that the embryos don't stick to the shell. To see if they are stuck or not, you could mark one side x and the other side o. Set them with all the x's up, wait 30 minutes, and candle them. All of the embryos should be on the x side. Then place them o side up, wait 30 minutes, and candle again. This time, all of the embryos should be on the o side,

 

[Derrick]

They are only 3+ days in the incubator. Too early to candle

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't see any reason for you to panic or even worry that much. Turning the eggs has more advantages than just to keep the embryo or yolk from touching the inside of that porous shell and sticking. There have been studies of how often to turn and when to turn. Turning does improve your chances of a successful hatch. The studies were clear about that. But how much it helps isn't that much. If you were hatching over 1,000,000 each week like some commercial hatcheries it would be very noticeable. For as small as most of our hatches are I would expect to see very little difference, especially as early as you caught it.

Good luck! I think you will be OK.

 

[Derrick]

Not panicking. Just wondering if anybody has done this mistake and % that hatched.

 

[hammyanne]

Not exactly apples to apples, but I just had a 50% hatch rate on a batch that I didn't turn for 2 days. These were shipped eggs that were already delayed a bit in transit, so I popped them into the incubator ASAP and tried to make up for lost time that they should have spent resting on the counter by not turning the first few days.