What I have been doing is just setting eggs once a week. Anything I still have that hasn't shipped or been eaten by my children goes in my own bator. That way I know I never have any eggs in the house over a week old unless they are in the bator trying to hatch. I also mark my expected hatch date on each egg. Since I'm running staggered hatches it helps me keep track of when to put them all in lockdown. I have 1 bator full now all set to hatch right around Christmas, give or take a day or 2. I'll be cranking up another bator tonight or tomorrow for my NYD eggs. I have a total of 4 bators, so usually I use 1 as a hatcher & just move eggs to it at lockdown. Helps keep most of the bators relatively clean & just 1 dirty hatcher that way. When the hatcher starts to get too dirty I switch to using a different 1 so I can empty out the dirty one & clean it.Wow, really? He had offered to send me some eggs that I really wanted (to replace my hawk dinner chickens, who were my babies) at a really, really great price. I couldn't even afford that price at the time though, and couldn't take him up on it. For once, I'm glad I'm broke, because I certainly can't afford to send someone money for something that isn't going to hatch. :/
I've been dating everything that I toss in the incubator, but only with the date I've set them. Instead of putting everything spread out into all three trays, I just put the set date on the eggs so I could tell them apart and know which ones have to go to the hatching tray each time. Maybe when I start shipping eggs, I should write the dates on them as well, to help prevent this kind of thing?