Hatching silkie eggs in an incubator

[Kmb8307]

While a friend of mine was on vacation one of her silkie chickens went broody & was sitting on a clutch of eggs. I told her to candle the eggs & mark the fertile ones & pull the others. When she went to check them she found 36 eggs under her! She was stealing the other silkies eggs for her own. I took 12 eggs from her to put in my incubator. I candled them before I put them in my incubator & some are farther along then others. How do I hatch eggs at different developmental stages. They appear to be a 5 day spread between the furthest along in development & the least developed one. It is hard to tell exactly, but just wanted some advice on how to incubate these little babes! Thanks!

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Unless you have a second incubator/hatcher there isn't much you can do. Are you manually turning or using an auto turner? When you stop turning the furthest along you can just stop turning them all (take out the turner) as they really don't have to be turned in their final week anyway.

 

[Kmb8307]

I have an auto turner and i figured i would just turn it off for lock down & hope for the best ‍the furthest along looks like about 9 days & the least developed one looks at about day 3 or 4. I have never had silkies before so I am really hoping they hatchn because I have always wanted silkies! I just hate the wait of will they won't they hatch!

 

[SunHwaKwon]

When my guinea was sitting on her nest outside my living room window another guinea kept going in and laying eggs. You can't take eggs from a broody guinea without losing a limb so I had to wait until she hatched her babies and left the nest before I could collect them. I candled them and any that looked good I tossed in the incubator. Well, the majority hatched within 2 weeks, and in the meantime I found a second nest and put them in and didn't mark them. Well, long story short I was candling eggs every 3 days or so to see if any of the old eggs were drawn down and ready to hatch. Two Fridays ago I candled, no one looked ready. Busy weekend and I didn't candle Monday. Tuesday I went to check on eggs real quick before work and a guinea was crawling around and crying, on top of the turner. It was about halfway dry so I estimate it hatched late Monday, and boy am I glad I decided to check on them!

My neighbor constantly staggers eggs, popping them in as he collects them so he can never turn off his incubator or raise humidity or any of that. He still manages to hatch quite a few chicks, though maybe his hatch rate is not nearly as good as it could be (it doesn't help that his incubator is junk though).

My point being, even staggered hatches can work. You may not get 100% to hatch, but as long as they are fertile and nothing crazy happens with temps or humidity I don't doubt you will end up with some silkie babies.

 

[Kmb8307]

When my guinea was sitting on her nest outside my living room window another guinea kept going in and laying eggs. You can't take eggs from a broody guinea without losing a limb so I had to wait until she hatched her babies and left the nest before I could collect them. I candled them and any that looked good I tossed in the incubator. Well, the majority hatched within 2 weeks, and in the meantime I found a second nest and put them in and didn't mark them. Well, long story short I was candling eggs every 3 days or so to see if any of the old eggs were drawn down and ready to hatch. Two Fridays ago I candled, no one looked ready. Busy weekend and I didn't candle Monday. Tuesday I went to check on eggs real quick before work and a guinea was crawling around and crying, on top of the turner. It was about halfway dry so I estimate it hatched late Monday, and boy am I glad I decided to check on them!

My neighbor constantly staggers eggs, popping them in as he collects them so he can never turn off his incubator or raise humidity or any of that. He still manages to hatch quite a few chicks, though maybe his hatch rate is not nearly as good as it could be (it doesn't help that his incubator is junk though).

My point being, even staggered hatches can work. You may not get 100% to hatch, but as long as they are fertile and nothing crazy happens with temps or humidity I don't doubt you will end up with some silkie babies.

Thanks for the info! I will be checking them to make sure all is well. I'm hoping they all hatch fine, but we will have to just wait and see...i hate waiting

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I will go by quick as long as you find things to distract yourself. When I first started hatching it felt like it took forever!