incubation and manual turning bit of advice needed (glevum superior)

[jamie101]

hi everyone

story goes I baught an old western 1200 egg incubator (cheep), I actually diddent realise how big it was until i collected it!

anyways the bloke gave me a FREE glevum superior incubator with the western as he needed the space in his shed,

the plan was i was going to hatch some pheasant eggs in the western with my son and put them down on our local shoot approx 200 extra (as the gamekeeper has 800 already) but due to the size of it it and running costs would be silly to put only 200 eggs init!

so the we looked into the old glevum which is all in one piece and converted to electric already, the only problem we have is that we go away on weekends and would be missing out on turning them, (where as the big western would have done it for us - as its an automatic turner)

i know they really need turning at least three times a day morning, noon and night, but we would miss Friday night turn, all day Saturday, and sunday morning turn, so all in all we would miss 5 turns!

i have hatched ducks and chickens before so i know you need to turn them as often as possible, but my question is would it really make any difference to miss these turns out or do i need someone to turn them for me while im away?

thanks in advance everyone for your opinions,

[shoot and be safe]

They would need to be turned at least once on a 24hr period.

You may get away with it but you will loose a good proportion as the developing chick will stick to the shell.

 

That being said, if you can plan you hatch to happen the day after you return you will be fine as you dont turn the eggs during the last few days

 

However, that also being said, there are a lot of variables that can occur during the incubation period (temperature and humidity variations, the risk of power cuts etc) that it would also be a risk of loosing the lot if you are not on hand to rectify the situation.

 

Good luck with the hatch and remember to keep things sterile

[Teal]

The first couple of days turning is not so important - and as SABS says the last couple of days also shouldn't be turned.

 

I would definitely get someone to turn them whilst you are away- if you time it as per SABS suggestion then that should minimise the favours you need to call in here. If you set them on a Friday afternoon, then you will only need to get someone in for the two middle weekends to turn them.

 

Having seen chicks hatched when the incubator has not turned it's not something I would recommend for you and your son as a large proportion will be lost, even those that do make it out are seldom right. Perhaps the gamekeeper would call in, with the extra birds I'm sure he'd be grateful.