Different dates in bater

[raeleigh26]

Things have been chaotic here, & ds has been slacking on collecting eggs. I mentioned that I'd only seen 3 of our 5 hens the last few days, and he's bringing in fewer eggs than usual. (Ambitious hens, we get between 4 & 9 eggs daily) he swore he checked everywhere.

They lay in the barn, in the creep feeder, in one of 3 nest boxes in the coop.

Well, I was home and out doing chores myself tonight and guess what?
Broody hen sitting 17 eggs. SEVENTEEN!
So, I don't let hens sit for many reasons, & I didn't intend to hatch this year, lost big on sales last year.
But I candled them and they're all viable and by air cell size they're almost all between 5/7 days, they all seem to be the same size ish, but hard to tell. 4 are very tiny so likely today or yesterday, but I left them in anyway.
Sigh.
I have 2 incubators, one to incubate, one to hatch.
My question is, the ones that seem close together in development, will they hatch at the same time?
Is there a way to tell when they should go into lockdown?
When I do have a planned hatch, I collect 8 eggs in the same 24 hours, and set 8 each week. I dry incubate, zero contact no matter what after lockdown, and haven't lost one since I started using this process. I'm not novice, but not a pro.
I don't want to have to remove chicks without knowing if others have pipped yet, I'm hoping I can tell gestation better as they grow?

 

[FuzzyCritters]

The ones that seem close in development should hatch around the same time. They may be a few hours to two days apart. When the chicks are ready to go into lockdown, when you candle the eggs you should see a large air cell and the rest of the egg should be dark.

 

[MGG]

Things have been chaotic here, & ds has been slacking on collecting eggs. I mentioned that I'd only seen 3 of our 5 hens the last few days, and he's bringing in fewer eggs than usual. (Ambitious hens, we get between 4 & 9 eggs daily) he swore he checked everywhere.

They lay in the barn, in the creep feeder, in one of 3 nest boxes in the coop.

Well, I was home and out doing chores myself tonight and guess what?
Broody hen sitting 17 eggs. SEVENTEEN!
So, I don't let hens sit for many reasons, & I didn't intend to hatch this year, lost big on sales last year.
But I candled them and they're all viable and by air cell size they're almost all between 5/7 days, they all seem to be the same size ish, but hard to tell. 4 are very tiny so likely today or yesterday, but I left them in anyway.
Sigh.
I have 2 incubators, one to incubate, one to hatch.
My question is, the ones that seem close together in development, will they hatch at the same time?
Is there a way to tell when they should go into lockdown?
When I do have a planned hatch, I collect 8 eggs in the same 24 hours, and set 8 each week. I dry incubate, zero contact no matter what after lockdown, and haven't lost one since I started using this process. I'm not novice, but not a pro.
I don't want to have to remove chicks without knowing if others have pipped yet, I'm hoping I can tell gestation better as they grow?

Make sure you mark the eggs she's sitting on so you can remove any newly added eggs. I would also artificially incubate all of the young eggs.