I know you're not supposed to mix or have staggared hatches, but......

[tntstanifer]

My kids and I found 2 duck eggs at the park day before yesterday. I brought them home and put them in the Hovabator forced air incubator that evening. It was already going with chicken eggs on Day 10. Has anyone every done this with success? I'm not going to raise the humidity much more than I've been keeping it (50%). Do you think it will work? I'll candle in a few more days to see if there's growth.

 

[rrcommander]

I am in the same boat. I have one duck egg. My question was opening the incubator after day 18 of the chickens cycle to turn the duck egg.

 

[Struttn1]

It can get tricky if you only have one incubator. I would set the duck eggs in one corner and place a soaking wet sponge next to them. also keep the duck eggs misted everytime you open the incubator.

I have staggered eggs in my incubator with the turner but I write the dates to stop turning on each egg and on that date those eggs are moved to my hatching incubator. I candle the newest eggs when moving eggs that are ready to hatch. I am getting nearly 100% hatch on turkeys.

 

[heatherspangler]

I remember staggering hatches when i was younger when my mom was doing it. WE had 2 very large incubators with 4 large shelves and started at the top and moved down and wrote dates on them like someone else mentioned. We had chicks hatching every few days all the time, it seemed something was always hatching! We just switched the shelves every week as one hatched then moved it down. I don't think that it ever affected hatch % or anything like that, it seemed to work out.

 

[Struttn1]

What is really working out well is the older poults are teaching the new hatched poults where to find the food and water. It's like having a nanny for the babies.