2 different hatches in the same incubator (question)

[adorable]

I have eggs in the bator that the due date is may 6.But i have more eggs coming. Can i take out half of my egg turner out. When it is 3 days before and leave the other eggs in the egg turner. Will this work out ok. ?

 

[Motherof4]

you need to lock down the last three days. it sounds like you nee a second incubator

 

[Olive Hill]

As long as your egg turner comes apart and you have room for a hatching tray elsewhere in the bator.

 

[The Chicken People]

My friend does that and I did it on my first and last experiment with a staggered hatch!

 

[adorable]

Quote:
How did it go?

 

[adorable]

I have never done this before. Or do i just leave the turner out all together. Put a divider in it. So i know which ones are suppose to hatch first...What about the humidity when it comes to lockdown. ?Does anyone have a pic of this with their staggard hatch. ????

 

[JordanFamily]

I'm doing the same thing so will follow this thread to see if anyone has any advice for us... What I plan to do if no one answers is keep the humidity on the low end but still ok for my breed, so about 35-40% for chickens and then when the first hatch is ready for lockdown take the extra trays out of the turner and stagger the two turner trays that I will still have in there so that they are not close together and would cause a hazard to the newly hatched chicks legs getting caught. I will up the humidity to 65-70% as needed for the lockdown eggs... I plan on putting the lockdown eggs in an egg carton or little egg carton cups with the bottoms cut out for ventilation... Then I will take the hatched chicks out when they are all done and put the humidity back down to the low at 35%... Then when the second batch is ready for lockdown up it to 65%... You can also weigh your eggs to make sure they are loosing enough and adjust the humidity as needed for the second batch before they hatch... They should loose 12-13% if chicken eggs through out their whole incubation and can do a search on weight chart or weighing eggs to find more on weighing them if you like. I'm hoping that will work and if anyone has any other advice please let us know...

 

[adorable]

Jordan family..How far apart is your hatch?

 

[glenolam]

Very bad pic, I know - I took it with my cell about 3 weeks ago. It is of a chick who hatched and is now laying on duck eggs - the duck eggs were set to hatch a week later and here's the pic from that:

Here's another of a chick who hatched in the bator with the duck eggs - you can just make out a duck egg in the far left of the pic:

I did "lock down" my chicken eggs for 3 days without touching the duck eggs. It actually turned out to be 2 days because the chicks started hatching on day 20 - each time I took a chick out I would turn the duck eggs if I noticed a chick hadn't done that already for me.

The automatic turner would have been useful, but all my ducks survived without turning for 2 days. I don't have any experience with auto-turners, but I would imagine you would just want to be sure no chicks sit on top of the eggs and mess anything up.

I even took the duck eggs out after all chicks had hatched, set them on the counter, and quickly washed out the incubator. This all happened in about 5-10 min, though, because I didn't want the ducks to be out too long.

I made sure the humitidy was high when the chicks were hatching. IMO - It didn't matter if it increased for the ducks since they still had a week to go. Once the chicks were out, humidity went back down until it was time for the ducklings. But, if you don't want to mess around like that you could always mist the eggs due to hatch so only those are a little wet...

 

[JordanFamily]

Quote:
My first batch will be on day 21 on May 7th and my second on May 15... So 8 days apart...