Staggered hatch

[shmccarthy]

Hi everyone,
I have a question for the people who frequently/continuously hatch eggs.
I have 24+ silkie eggs that are en route to my house. Two orders of 12, one is going to the post office for me to pick up and the other should be being dropped off at my house. I paid for priority mail (2 day) for both so they should both be here relatively the same time. I have my hovabator up and running and the egg turner set up. I will let the eggs sit for at least 24 hours before I set them.

But my question is,

I have the option of getting some (12) blue/black/splash eggs from someone I have been talking to next week. They were originally supposed to ship this week, but the hens haven't been laying a lot, which is understandable. Should I get these ones and do a staggered hatch? Or is it too risky to separate hatch dates a week or so apart?
I know shipped eggs is a gamble but every seller I ordered from gave me detailed information of how they package and ship their eggs and all seem very reliable. Now I just have to hope everything on the post office's end goes smoothly. If everything goes according to plan, I will have 36 eggs in the incubator. I would be absoluetely ecstatic if 20 hatched. I would be incredibly happy if 15 even hatched. Heck I would be happy if 10 hatched. I do know that because of things out of our control, we can't guarantee hatchability, which is why I wanted to order a large amount, to hopefully improve my chances of success.
What do you think, should I still get the 12 blue/black/splash eggs and stagger the hatch? Or is it too big of a risk and I should stick with the 24 eggs? Thanks!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If there's room in the incubator and they're a week apart, I don't see a problem. You'll only have the humidity too high for about 4 days at the most while the first batch hatch.

I would weigh the eggs when you set and each week. They should lose about 0.65% weight every day with correct humidity. That way you'll be able to adjust humidity properly.

 

[lazy gardener]

Do you have the option of getting the BBS eggs at a later date, starting them after the first hatch, or is this one of these "too good to pass up" deals?

 

[shmccarthy]

It's a 41 egg incubator, so I do have plenty of room. I was mainly worried about lockdown and turning the remaining 12 eggs.

I've heard of people doing staggered hatches but I'm just not so sure with eggs a week apart. I'm actually talking to the seller through Facebook, and she said it will be a week or so because the hens haven't been laying very frequently and she wants to use as fresh as possible eggs. We also agreed to send beginning of the week so the eggs don't sit in a post office over the weekend. She may include some extras. I haven't paid her yet but I have been talking to her daily and asking questions. I explained how I have 24 eggs on the way, I'm not sure if she'll be able to send later, I know she has other orders to fill too she said.
Would it be best to ask if she can send them a couple weeks from now and just do two hatches you think?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

You might want to hold off till they start laying better. That way most of the eggs will be nearly the same age. She may have to hold eggs a while not to get enough.

 

[shmccarthy]

I think you're right. I just contacted the seller and said I'm in no big hurry and if she has better luck getting eggs in the next couple weeks that would work too because I already have some in the incubator.

And I got one shipment of eggs yesterday. I am not exactly thrilled with what happened though. I was expecting 2 packages yesterday, a candler and the show quality silkie eggs. I had to work an early shift yesterday so on my break I checked the tracking progress. It said both packages arrived at the post office at around 8:30 and both said "out for delivery" the eggs had written on it, in big red letters mind you, to hold at post office and call for pickup with my phone number on it. I figured that since I had another package coming, they just sent both of them out. My mom was home all day yesterday and said she would keep an eye out for them. My candler areived at 4:45 but the eggs did not. I checked the tracking info again and it changed to just "arrived at post office"
I called my post office and was on the phone with a not so helpful woman. She kept intereupting me and was very rude and kept trying to boot me off the line and pick the package up in the morning. I told her the post office should've called me and not changed the tracking info to out for delivery, and it's their fault this happened. I told her there's no way I'm letting the eggs stay overnight there and I need them right now. She finally agreed to let me pick them up. When I got them home they were really cold. My temperature gun read them at 40.1(f). I let them sit overnight at room temperature and candled them just a little bit ago.
One egg was cracked. It was hairline and the membrane is still intact I believe.

The rest of them seemed okay. I got 7 whites, 2 blue, 1 black, 1 splash and 1 buff. One if the blue eggs is the one with the hairline crack so I really want to save it. I didn't have any Elmer's glue so I put a very, very small amount of clear nail polish just on the cracks. I'm going to candle it on day 3 or 4 to see if it's developing at all. I'm going to keep a really close eye on that one especially and if it doesn't develop I'm just going to remove it.

Here's them in the incubator. I just put them in about 15 minutes ago. I have 12 more on their way today that should be delivered to my house but who knows with the usps :/ I'm crossing my fingers this whole mess didn't ruin my chances of hatching any.

 

[shmccarthy]

More issues with the post office

So I kept checking my tracking info (I'm kind of excited) and around 2pm it said "notice left" I called my mom and asked if there were any notices on the doors or mailbox and there were none. So I called the post office and this time I spoke with the head boss of that office. He apologized up and down and explained that the driver is a substitute driver for our regular driver, who we haven't had a problem with. He's had numerous complaints about her and is making a case report to get her off delivery driving. He added my two cases to the report. He said she won't be back from her route for another couple hours but took down my address and phone number and said he would personally deliver the eggs for me. I was initially very upset with my post office but I'm thankful that there are aome good people there who truly care about their users. The other eggs should be here tonight around 6:30.

 

[randerson846]

I know this post is old but how many hatched

 

[shmccarthy]

None developed past day 1. They were too damaged and got too cold because of the post office :/

 

[randerson846]

Aww that's disappointing