Does anyone else continuously incubate?

[janurism]

I am curious if anyone else on here keeps their incubator full? I normally put 8-10 eggs in my Hovabator 1602 still air every day. And every day, I have chicks coming out. I'm getting between 80-95% hatch rate on my fertile eggs, I don't do lockdown. I don't stop turning, and I don't look too closely at the moisture.. but still getting a great success rate... Has anyone else tried this 'revolving door' technique?

 

[LTygress]

I do, and post about it pretty regularly. I only have a Little Giant incubator with four trays in it for a total of 28 eggs. But I only get between 1 and 4 eggs per day right now. I do have some backed up and waiting, and I was JUST about to buy another incubator to solve that problem....

But then two of my hens went broody, and those were the eggs I was REALLY wanting to incubate more than any others. So I'm sticking with one for now, and I let those hens have plenty of the backed-up supply of hatching eggs, lol!

Same thing with lockdown and turning though. I don't bother with a lockdown period (kinda hard when you have eggs every day) and I don't take them out of the turner. I've actually gotten a HIGHER hatch-rate since I stopped removing them from the turner. It's 100% now on the fertile eggs. Only 3 were removed lately, and all three weren't fertile at all.

 

[Frost Homestead]

I hatch continuously, but it's more of an every 21 days thing. I only have a brinsea 20 so I set 2 dozen eggs every 3 wks.

edited for typo

 

[LTygress]

I assume you still go through lock-down periods though? Do you stop them all from turning three days before hatching?

 

[chickydee64]

I do continued hatches...................
I have two LG's....one to incubate, one to hatch......................
I set once a week............the same day each time.
Lock down is moved to the hatcher the same day each week ect.
Hatch is complete with time to sterilize before the next lockdown.

 

[janurism]

I don't do lockdowns, they get turned like the rest until they start to peep... I seem to be doing pretty good, for not following the rules I was just curious if anyone else has had success with this method, and am glad to see I'm not the only one I've branched out recently to a 2nd incubator, 1st for the initial week+, the 2nd is the hatcher.. I have both set at the same temp/moisture... I have told a couple of other people about how I've been incubating, and kicking out chicks, and have gotten a lot of negative feedback for doing it (no idea why!) I've got good hatch rates, and similarly good percentage rates for my fertile eggs... I'm glad to have some validation for doing it!

 

[LTygress]

I don't think those are the same. I think what Janurism and I do are the same, but the others still do "gathering" and then "sitting" at a later date, all at once. And they incorporate lockdowns, which we don't do.

It's not continuous hatching, it's just back-to-back broods. But right now I have about 23 chicks in my brooder and only six hatched on the same day. The other 17 hatched on different days, and they all range in age from 4 weeks to 3 days. Out of those remaining 17, none of them share a hatch date at all! And the only reason those six did, is because I was experimenting with a "refrigerator egg" hatch, so I took them all back out of the fridge at once (and it worked, by the way).

Otherwise, Janurism and I both seem to start incubation the moment the eggs are laid. We don't wait at all.

 

[Roxannemc]

Dont you get confused on what brreed is hatching what day or do you keep a chart?

 

[LTygress]

Not at all. If I can't tell by the egg color, I can tell once they come out of the egg.

 

[janurism]

I only have Rhode Island Reds, so breed is easy. I write the date I put them in on the egg itself, makes it easy to keep track of tentative hatch days...I've been curious about refridgerator eggs.. I'm glad to hear that can work as well! I like waking up every day to seeing chicks in the incubator.. I rotate them through.. newest eggs go in the back, the hatchers go in the front over a paper towel to catch the mess... Depending on egg sales, all my extras go in the incubator.. I usually sell 2-3 dozen eggs a day, so sometimes it only leaves me 2-3 eggs to put in, other times, I'm putting 1-2 dozen in a time.. I have 3 staged brooder boxes.. 1 for 0-2 weeks old, 1 for 2-5 weeks old, one for 5-8 weeks old.. the rest then go in with the adult flock, while some of the little roosters go in the freezer at 4 months. I like the revolving door.. I always have some in any age range for buyers! Thanks Tygress for backing me up!