Help with very staggered hatch

[Nicky S]

I would really appreciate some advice with what looks like a very staggered hatch. Current situation is: one chick hatched with mamma today (yay!), and we have left 2 more eggs with mamma that are pretty developed according to our candling estimates - though I don’t know whether they will hatch before mamma leaves the nest. In the incubator we have 12 eggs we removed from mamma, 8 are most likely duds and 4 are definitely alive and growing, but we think two mid and two early. How can I coordinate this? We do have a second incubator we got years ago for some abandoned wild bird eggs my son found after a storm, but it’s a styrofoam one and there was something wrong with the humidity meter I remember. What are my best options seeing as I can’t go back in time and correct my many mistakes?! First hurdle would be mamma leaving the developed eggs and how to put them with the ones in the incubator. Many thanks

 

[cavemanrich]

Let the eggs set under mama, for up to 3 days,,, before possibility of her abandoning them. I think she will stretch for the 3 days, at least. If you see mama leaving the nest,, then just slip the eggs into your running incubator,,,, and don't stress or worry. Just try your best.

WISHING YOU BEST...........................

 

[Nicky S]

Ok thank you! We’ll give it a go - I wasn’t sure whether to set the humidity for the late eggs or the earlier ones, what to do about turning etc.

 

[MaryZoe]

Maybe fire up the old styrofoam inc’y and use it as a Hatcher. Keep the humidity super high by adding plenty of water. If the humidity is nice and low during the early hatching stage (days 1-18), it’s hard for it to be too high during the hatch. They can tolerate lots of humidity at the end. This way you can maintain your good inc’y for the early to mid hatching eggs, keeping low humidity and turning, and keep the styrofoam high humidity and no turning. I usually have a separate Hatcher going b/c I often set my eggs a week apart.

 

[Nicky S]

Maybe fire up the old styrofoam inc’y and use it as a Hatcher. Keep the humidity super high by adding plenty of water. If the humidity is nice and low during the early hatching stage (days 1-18), it’s hard for it to be too high during the hatch. They can tolerate lots of humidity at the end. This way you can maintain your good inc’y for the early to mid hatching eggs, keeping low humidity and turning, and keep the styrofoam high humidity and no turning. I usually have a separate Hatcher going b/c I often set my eggs a week apart.

Thank you! I’m off to the attic to search for it!