Different Age Eggs in the Same Incubator???

[The Monkey Mama]

On Sunday I won two auctions for eggs from two different sellers on eBay.

On Monday, one seller shipped the eggs. Those eggs arrived yesterday, sat out overnight, and are now in my incubator. No problems at all.

The other seller emailed Monday saying the weather had made her hens go broody and she didn't have enough eggs of the one breed I bought; would I mind if she subbed 1/2 of another breed. I said that would be just great, and asked if she wanted more money [she's subbing marans, which are more valuable, and I don't mind paying more for them]. I asked her to send me an updated invoice and I'd pay immediately.

This was Monday and I never heard back. I emailed Tuesday asking about what she had decided to do. NO response.

I emailed yesterday [Wed] morning just a nice email saying that it sounded like there was a problem filling the order and explaining that I had other eggs that had just arrived that I needed to incubate, could we just cancel the auction. [And I would have no hard feelings, I understand the weather can affect hens for sure!]

No response. Now, just now [Thurs], I got an invoice from her saying "just let me know if you want half marans or if you want the whole order of the other birds you won". No acknowledgment of any of my emails or my request to cancel the auction at that point due to her inability to fill the order in a timely manner....

So, my question is, can I have two sets of eggs incubating at the same time that are due to hatch at different dates? How will that affect the second hatch?

I only have one incubator and it is a crummy "Little Giant" - hard to control humidity and temp as it is.

I am worried about spoiling the second hatch when the first chicks start hatching and I have to get them out.

I am also worried that she's now going to send me eggs that have been sitting for a week or more while she waited for her hens to lay enough to fill the order...

I'm also worried that if she ships them tomorrow, they are going to sit for a LONG time at the Post office - it will be at least Mon or Tues before they would get here since they will be there over the weekend.

I DO still very much want these eggs, but I don't want to waste money on eggs that are too old now or that won't hatch because she shipped them so late they are going to be interfered with because of an earlier on-going hatch...

Any advice?

Thanks, Kelly

 

[smpezzi]

You could make a homemade incubator (there are TONS of plans on here for all different kinds of them- I spent less than $10 to make mine thanks to spare things around the house we had) I am sorry I can't better answer your question but it seems to me that if you do a homemade incubator then on day 18 for batch 1 (make sure you mark them somehow) take out batch 2 and put them into the homemade bator, then after batch 1 has hatched and you have cleaned the other bator and sanitized it you can hatch batch 2 in there. Just a thought Good Luck on your eggs

 

[penelope77]

i made the "scary hatcher" out of cardboard box, cardboard parts, brooder lamp(15 watt bulb since it's so dang hot in here), duct tape, don't forget the duct tape, cut off cottage cheese containers for water, sponges to put in the containers, and a really smooth towel with newspaper underneath. after it was assembled i tossed in the thermometer/hygrometer and spent about two days making modifications to get everything right. it still isn't perfect but it does do what it's supposed to do. i couldn't afford another bator so i had to make something for fear of messing things up. there are alot of plans for them that are far superior to my contraption and much better looking too. i only mentioned what i did as an attempt to encourage you to make your own if you can't buy another one. i still have eggs in my bator that will hatch at different times. i dated all the eggs so i knew what had to move on what day. i kind of like the hatcher cause then my bator doesn't get messy plus i can easily replace the hatcher since it's really just a box.