Incubating multiple species at the same time?????

[Domes Farm]

hello everyone,

I am going to be setting about a dozen chickens eggs tonight and was just given guinea and muscovy eggs to hatch. My question is, can i put all these eggs in the same incubator and have them hatch. It looks like i can leave the temp at 99.6 for everything. The only problem is that i have to stop turning eggs around day 19 for the chickens and wait to begin turning again until they hatch. Will this damage the duck and guinea eggs? I will be using a Brinsea Octagon without the automatic turner.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

The species that have the same incubation period you can set at the same time. The ones that do not have the same period you should put in later so that they will all be ready to stop turning at the same time then three days later to hatch so that you can boost the humidity for everyone at the same time as well.

I hatched chicken and turkey eggs at the same time. Turkeys are twenty eight days, chickens are twenty one. I set the turkeys first then exactly a week later at about the same time of day I set the chickens so that their final three days occurred at the same time. I stopped turning them at that time and raised the humidity. They started hatching the same day.

I don't recall off the top of my head what the incubation period for guineas and muscovies are. You'd need to look them up then set them at their appropriate time. Muscovies being a waterfowl they likely need a higher humidity so that may complicate matters. I'm sure we've got folks that hatch them and chickens together so they'll have to advise you there.

 

[TK Poultry]

i've never hatched them together I'm frankly not very good at hatching period.....but muscovies i do believe take 35 days to hatch

 

[Domes Farm]

Could i put them all in the bator at once and turn them by hand instead of turning the entire bator. This would allow me to turn just the guineas and muscovys while the chicks hatch.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

You could, but the final-three-days humidity requirements of the eggs that are about to hatch may be too much for the ones that still have a few days to go. Or not if you keep the initial humidity low to begin with. I'm sure we've got at least one person in here who has actually tried it. The muscovy eggs are going to complicate matters because they need a higher humidity than the non-waterfowl species as I recall. You really need to look that up. There are a number of sites that list incubation periods and humidity requirements for a great many different bird species.

 

[lemurchaser]

Which is the most important that it hatches?

If you want the chickens the most, then I'd set them all today. It means the duck eggs will have 2 times of lockdown without being turned, and give them the least chance of hatching.

I'd probably set the guineas today, the chickens and ducks in a week. The chickens and guineas will hatch together, and then the ducks get a longer time at the higher humidity that they need. That way only the duck eggs go through a period of no-turning. And all eggs get as good as possible conditions.