How crowded can incubator be during hatch?

[jkg]

How crowded can the incubator/hatcher be during hatching? If I leave the chicks inside for a day or so to dry them off and keep the humidity up, at some point they are crawling all over each other and struggling to find room. Is that ok? At what point will the crowded condition cause them to suffocate one of the pipping eggs or cause other problems? How do you weigh opening the incubator to remove spent shells and/or pull some of the earliest hatchers out to a brooder and create room versus keep it closed down and humid?

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
Rule #1 - if there is a pip DO NOT OPEN THE BATOR.

 

[duckluck]

Coupla people have told me don't worry about the other eggs, the early birds help to encourage them to come out. Them playing kickball and hide and seek in there adds incentive to hatch for the less adventurous ones.

 

[jkg]

Quote:
So back to the original question... How crowded can the incubator get before the chicks that have hatched put the ones still trying to hatch in danger?

 

[milleryardchx]

my lg turner holds 41 eggs so i would assum however many can fit in your egg turner is max how many should be in there. its only a day everyone should be fine i lost majority of my last hatch because i removed two chicks after 36 hours leave them dont open the lid!

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I don't know how crowded it can be. But I have found that too many eggs in the incubator makes the humidity go up and down alot and I have chicks that get stuck when the humidity drops sharply as will happen if say....6 chicks decided to pip and hatch at one time. Then the humidity go up, up up and it has to go down too. If chicks have freshly pipped and then the humidity goes down quickly, the membrane gets hard and the chick sometimes gets stuck.

So... I prefer to only hatch a dozen at a time. The hatch I just got done with had 36 eggs and some pipped and got stuck. I won't do big hatches like that again. Maybe if I had a nice Sportsman though!