INCUBATOR VS. BROODIES FOR FINAL STRETCH

[KEarthman]

MAY 17-We set eggs under very broody hens.
MAY 20-Same thing with 2 more!
MAY 23-A bobcat killed our favorite cream Legbar roo and 3 of his ladies. We collected eggs from his remaining ladies and set in incubator.
MAY 24-One of the broody's quit and we put her CL eggs in same large incubator. Other broody hens were maxed out.

Our question is- since the 2 sets of eggs in large incubator are almost 4 days apart, is it safe to wait until the later batch is due for lockdown? Or can we set some of the oldest incubator batch under the broodies? They've all rolled out a few bad eggs, so now there is a little room.
We know this sounds a little nuts. If our favorite roo and hens hadn't been murdered, we wouldn't be trying to set these extra. It was kind of a "Hail Mary" move. Not a lot of people have Cream Legbars and we wanted to continue his line if we could. Thanks in advance!

 

[Kiki]

Stopping turning the younger by a few day eggs early won't hurt them.

 

[KEarthman]

Stopping turning the younger by a few day eggs early won't hurt them.

And raise the humidity for lockdown on schedule for the oldest, or maybe delay a day or so? Would that hurt first batch? Thanks!

 

[junior67]

MAY 17-We set eggs under very broody hens.
MAY 20-Same thing with 2 more!
MAY 23-A bobcat killed our favorite cream Legbar roo and 3 of his ladies. We collected eggs from his remaining ladies and set in incubator.
MAY 24-One of the broody's quit and we put her CL eggs in same large incubator. Other broody hens were maxed out.

Our question is- since the 2 sets of eggs in large incubator are almost 4 days apart, is it safe to wait until the later batch is due for lockdown? Or can we set some of the oldest incubator batch under the broodies? They've all rolled out a few bad eggs, so now there is a little room.
We know this sounds a little nuts. If our favorite roo and hens hadn't been murdered, we wouldn't be trying to set these extra. It was kind of a "Hail Mary" move. Not a lot of people have Cream Legbars and we wanted to continue his line if we could. Thanks in advance!

if one of the broody's eggs are due to hatch the same day as the others then I would give them a few more. If they are due to hatch a bit earlier or later I would leave them in the incubator as she will only sit for a couple day then get up off the eggs that are left to care for the chicks she does have.

But like Kiki said you can stop turning the earlier ones early and they will be fine. What I have done with some due to hatch 4-5 days apart is stop turning on day 18 of the first ones but don't up the humidity until around day 19 as long as there aren't any internal pips (you should hear chicks chirping in the eggs) before then. Then I bumped the humidity for those ones. mine did hatch on day 20 and others were only on day 15/16 so I did try to dry out some of the water to bring humidity back down for a few days then I bumped it back up on day 19 for the younger eggs.