Incubating 5 days apart?

[SierraMara]

Hi everyone! I'm happy to share that my last (unfortunate) clutch was a mishap on my breeder's end with his rooster and our new batch from him are doing super well with a little over 50% fertility. We didn't know we'd be getting a batch from him so quickly since he needed a new rooster but he gave them to us last week. During that time though, I ordered some eggs online and I put them all together in our incubator. My question is regarding lockdown, since humidity will need to be higher. Our current humidity is super unstable and it dips a lot, between 20% and I try to keep it around 45%. They're 5 days apart, and I'm wanting to know if 50-60% is a safe bet for all of them or if we'll need to get an emergency incubator for the younger ones. Has anyone else dealt with this?

 

[Nabiki]

Staggered hatches are definitely a challenge. In my experience, if the humidity is too high too early, you end up with more curled toes and hatch issues. If you can get a second incubator, that would be your best option, but if you can't, the higher humidity will be your next best option. The humidity needs to be high enough for the chicks to hatch and hopefully a few days with higher humidity won't do much harm to the younger ones.