anyone done a staggered hatch in the same bator?

[moduckman]

Quote:
I had staggered hatches in both incubators at the same time. I had both incubators hatch the first round at the same time, then had two different hatches, respectively. counting quail, I had two hatches in each and with one more in each bator the 11th and the 13th. So yes you can stagger hatches, I did so twice, but I would rather hatch one time, clean the bator and hatch again. But with low temps and falling egg production in the winter, I find myself forced to stagger my hatches.

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
Nope, I was very good and didn't open the bator. That picture is thru window. I was very surprised at how clear it came out

ya got me,,
thought I had you, there..

yes, very clear..

 

[Kelpie]

I got 2 packs of eggs today, one still to come that ships tomorrow. One box was crushed and my home post office put a "received in damaged condition sticker on it". All the eggs were fine. The other looked fine but inside an egg was broken because they were shoddily packed. I don't think people should label boxes "hatching eggs" because that means the USPS plays football with them. I'm new to this but I'm a big fan of individually wrapping eggs in foam/bubble wrap/paper vs padding the carton (which is how both of these were done). The egg is a pretty perfect little structure and difficult to break but they need the protection from the pressure of hitting other eggs when the postal contractors are using them as step stools.

I'll clean my incubator tonight and start them in the morning. I guess I have 3 weeks to figure out what to do at hatching time. I'm actually a little happy I'm staggering them because I only have 7 racks spaces left and 12 eggs coming, so I should be able to free up several spaces after candling cause it looks like these babies had a rough ride.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Quote:
My crockpots were to hot even on the warm setting. Not sure on the bread warmer. Basically anything that you can keep the right temp and humidity will work.

 

[klf73]

I had a staggered hatch in the same incubator. The one that was a few days behind was horrible, very wet chicks that didn't hatch and I didn't even put the humidity up high. Could be coincidence, but I never did it again. I just made a styrobator to use as a hatcher for future batches.

 

[twigg]

Quote:
Staggered hatches are a perfectly normal technique, commercial breeders do it all the time.

To do it effectively normally requires a separate hatcher.

Load one tray of a 3 tray incubator on day 1. Load the second tray on day 7 and the third on day 14.

On day 18 empty tray 1 into the hatcher for their final 3 days, and reload tray one.

Ya can see how this works now

Some points to note .....

The bacterial build-up in the incubator needs managing. So, use egg wash on all eggs (not normally required) and, every couple of months allow the incubator to empty, and clean it properly.

The hatcher doesn't have this issue as it is empty for 4 days in every 7.

A simple system like this would produce about 40 day old chicks per week, numbers can be increased or reduced if you want.

 

[FortWorthChicks]

I was researching staggard hatching because I ordered eggs and weather has caused some to come in later than the others. I only have one incubator.

I wonder if my little candle warmer pad would work for the skillet incubator. I am going to be testing this out over the next few days and see if I can't get it to work for my staggard hatch.

 

[yellowflower]

I can't find the skillet info!