Pre-Incubation Egg Turner

To ensure that maximum egg hatchability is maintained, prior to the incubation of eggs, I have designed a simple manual turner to assist with keeping the fertilized eggs in the best condition, until enough eggs are collected. For this situation, using chicken eggs for a 36 egg incubator, the steps are -

Collect 36 fertilised eggs in 7 days (after 7 days hatchability decreases)

Place the narrow end of the egg down in the turner cartons (this keeps the air sac in the egg at the top)

Manually rotate the knob 180° each day for 7 days in a 15°C to 20°C location (prevents the air sac sticking)

After 7 days, follow your incubator instructions

The turner can be made from any scrap wood. I used spare pegboard for the moving pad and the egg cartons were glued with Aquadhere. A bolt, washers and nut is centred through the turner and base (before gluing the cartons). I used MDF for the stabilizing frame base. The egg cartons required for you incubator determines the size of the turner and base.

Comments

[lime3D]

If your stabilizing frame base is a right triangle (two equal sides, with a 45 degree angle), then you don't need to rotate anything.

Just mount the cartons to the angled surface. Each day, tip the whole thing over on the other side.

[uuhite]

Thanks for that. That is what we did with Mark I, but you run the risk of bumping or spilling the eggs. Also, we store the turner in the walk-in pantry, where temp is static, on a shelf and there is not much room to manoeuvre. The rotation of Mark II is so simple. Originally, we had a brick under one side of the cartons and end to ended them each day but it was also a pain.