Hello everyone! I am raising chicks from my own flock for someone else and I put in 10 eggs at the beginning because I wanted to have enough eggs to be able to get at least 2 females from the batch,but when I candled them recently only 2 were fertile(my chickens are molting and it's fall weather time!). I decided to get baby chicks from the feed store instead but none of them have chicks right now so late in the year.So I currently have 7 extra eggs(all fertile) in the incubator.The 2 eggs that were put in originally are scheduled to hatch Oct 21st and the rest on Nov 1st.Will the eggs be okay if the time is so radically different?Is there anything I can do to make sure things go smoothly?I have to change the humidity in the incubator 2-3 days before the first two hatch and I'm worried it will harm the other eggs.
I'm afraid it is going to have to be a risk you take unless you have another incubator. The humidity should not be a problem as long as you candle the remaining eggs after the hatch and probably lower the humidity for a couple of days. Humidity in small changes shouldn't be a problem as its the average over the entire incubation period that allows your eggs to lose enough moisture and the air cell to grow large enough. I think it will be more the turning that's the problem. If you have an auto turner that will need to be removed or hatched chicks could become trapped in it. But then that means hand turning which would then mean opening the incubator which then would allow humidity to decrease which is not good for the eggs in lockdown as chicks could become shrink wrapped in the shell. Staggered hatching is a real catch 22 situation and not something I personally like. But if these were my eggs I would continue turning the 7 and just hope for the best with the first original 2. Wishing you the very best of luck