Incubating Eggs - Different hatch dates - Update

[annieroo]

I'm have a delima. I had bought 24 BO eggs and 8 Cochin eggs via ebay. The BO eggs came in just fine the Cochin eggs came a week later. I have all the eggs in the bator and the BO are due to hatch this Friday or weekend. The Cochin eggs are not due to hatch until the following weekend. All the eggs will be taken out of the turner tonight to be put in lock down. Any ideas on what I do with the Cochin eggs? I know I can turn them myself on the floor of the bator if I keep them in during the BO hatch but I'm afraid increasing the humidity will hurt the Cochin eggs, much less if they get knocked around during the hatching process. I swear I will never do this again. I do have a hen that seems to be sitting quite a bit do you think I could put the Cochin eggs under her and things would be okay? Thanks for any ideas on this.

Update: Babies are starting to hatch as of yesterday afternoon. I ended up putting the cochin eggs in a paper egg carton on one side of the bator to solve the problem of keeping them separate. The new chicks cannot knock them over this way. Anyhow, keeping my fingers crossed that the cochin eggs will be fine and ready to hatch next week. Thanks everyone for your input.

 

[Karrie13]

What kind of incubator are you using? I am wondering if you can make a barrier between the different sets so the ones hatching will not walk all over the ones that are still developing. I have a little giant and made a barrier using hardware cloth so that I could keep the eggs from different breeders separate and it worked fairly well. I did have on chickie figure out how to get over the top.

With the humidity being up for a couple days while the BO's are hatching, I don't think your cochins will have any problems. Even if they are not turned during those couple of days they should be fine. Others have successfully had staggered hatches in styro bators but you know it would never hurt to get another one to use as a hatcher! You would be able to hatch out twice as many chicks!

I would be worried about putting the cochin eggs under a hen that is just sitting a lot, she may just leave them and cause more harm then them staying in the bator while the BO's hatch.

 

[annieroo]

I have the styrofoam hovabator with turner. I was concerned that the additional humidity may hurt the Cochin eggs but it's relief if it won't. I guess I'll try and figure out a way of putting some kind of divider in. Thanks so much for the idea. It's my fault about the different hatch dates. Hubby said I could buy more of the Cochin eggs since I had hatched out 2 beauties from the same seller a month before. When I got online they had 2 different sets of BO eggs dirt cheap and ended up buying them too which I shouldn't have done and I just figured they would all be shipped around the same time. The Cochin seller wasn't able to fill the order until later, which gave me the different hatching dates. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything will turn out. I would love to have another Bator but it's just not in my budget right now but one day! Thanks again!

 

[Nekhebet]

The divider idea is awesome! I'm in the same boat, and if I can't get my home made bator up in time, I'm dividing for sure

 

[zoo2u]

I had 41 eggs in my incubator, all completely different hatch dates. I have been running the incubator since August 7th and have hatched out 27 completely healthy chicks, usually 1-2 hatch each day. I do fill the water each time i remove baby chicks and then i also turn the eggs that haven't hatched at that time. So far, all has been really well. Good luck with yours, i hope it goes smoothely!