Adding Eggs to Incubator after starting first set of eggs.

[Cowgirlgrace]

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x2, especially if you are new to incubation.

 

[GreenGoddess]

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Ok... are you doing the "salt" test? Put 1/2 cup sat in a cup with 1/4 cup of water and then place the cup and hygrometer in a zip lock bag, seal it up and read after 8-12 hours? It should read 75%...

Goddess

 

[Susan Mc]

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Hi,
If you're brand new to this game, you might want to try a start to finish run to get some experience under your belt first. If they have been stored properly, eggs have good hatchability until 7 days. You must turn them from the start if you want to store them longer than that, but I personally don't bother setting eggs older than 14 days.

We are doing staggered hatching at the moment, and use a fully automatic incubator with humidity pump for the first 18 days, and have an old still air incy as a hatcher. We currently are setting eggs every 5 days, and I wouldn't recommend setting any closer together than that. This length of time allows you to set the eggs at day 18, leave them until hatching on day 21, and gives you an extra day or two for late hatchers, before wiping the machine down for the next set.

If you have a machine available to use as a hatcher, a good way to go about staggered hatching is to set once a week and time events to your schedule. If you want to have hatches occur on the weekends then set eggs every Saturday and make sure you have time on Wednesdays to move them to the hatcher, for instance.
Best of luck to you and happy hatching! I've 2 in the brooder myself, and 2 more hatching as I type!

 

[Malikshahzad]

In order to do a "staggered hatch" like you are describing (chicks due on multiple dates)....it is best to have more than 1 incubator. One to be used for incubation/regular turning, one for hatching

Good luck

Very good idea