Does "set eggs daily" mean you are adding eggs daily to the incubator that is turned on and working? So the eggs would be hatching out over just as many days instead of all within the same day or two? Also, you seem to have an excellent hatch rate on your "set eggs daily" method. From other threads I have read, I was lead to believe that a 50% hatch rate was considered good. So I hope you can enlighten me on your method.
Yes you are correct. There are times when I will set eggs daily and yes, this means putting eggs into the incubator that is already working. Up until lockdown day its ok to open your incubator for a brief period - as long as you are not creating unnecessary or prolonged fluctuations for your already incubating eggs.
My method is that I have the main incubator set to my preferred temperature and humidity for incubating.
When the eggs are at their lock down day - they are transferred to a separate incubator that is specifically set with hatching parameters.
This method has the following benefits:
Eggs are set very shortly after being laid to minimise storage/age based issues and associated poor developmental outcomes.
Once you find a setting that works well for your incubators you can leave them be and no need to change them between incubation and hatching settings. I will periodically do confirmation checks with independent hygrometers and thermometers of course but generally, changing settings is avoided. Unnecessary fiddling with and changing parameters runs the risk of causing fluctuations that cost you chicks.
You can put as many or as few eggs as you like in using this flow - up to the maximum capacity of your incubator of course.
This method has the following downsides:
It's advisable to have spare parts and/or a backup incubator in case of failure. Nothing worse than having an element blow when you have 56 eggs at various stages of incubation!!
You also need to be mindful of good hygiene and maintenance - running an incubator consistently for more than a month increases your risk of harmful organisms propagating in the incubator and affecting your eggs. I always plan to take my incubator out of incubation duty on a periodic basis so it can be properly disinfected and maintained. IN practice this means I either take a break from incubating for a time or I have a second incubator to use in the interim.
And YES! It's true.. Last season I had a precious few eggs laid by some of my project hens and, with every care taken, I managed to get several 100% hatches
As a comparison - I purchased some hatching eggs from a breeder who shipped the eggs to me. She packaged really well but they still took 5 days to get to me, plus a little over a day sitting to normalise. I purchased 10 eggs from her, had 1 loss while hatching and 9 successfully hatched. Three had to be culled due to unacceptable development faults and general weakness - and the remainders have become lovely birds!
