Multiple sets in one incubator?

[aimeesue2118]

Hello! I have been reading for a while but this is my first time posting. I have collected several eggs over the past few days that I believe will be super blues, and I want to hatch them. There has been an Ameraunaca roo and an EE roo until 2 days ago - now there is the EE roo and a Buff Orpington roo, so I want to use the eggs that were most likely fertilized by the original pair. I am starting another set on 3/20 for my first grade class, and if I put these ones in now, they won't be done by the time the next set starts. Can I have 2 different sets at the same time? Will the humidity of the first hatch be too much for the second set? I have a broody on a few others now(1 week in) but nobody else wants to be broody....
Thanks

 

[Cluckspert13]

Welcome to BYC from NC! I hope you enjoy it here and find everything you are looking for! If I could be of any assistance, please feel free to contact me through PM or through this thread! I have had great success doing this before although it is not recommended. If you would like to hatch the eggs from your pure-breds, then go ahead. I am not too experienced at hatching at the same time because I tend to shy away from hatching them like that. Good luck!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Welcome to the forum! e Glad you joined us!

I recently learned that there is a Last In-First Out thing going on with fertilization. When chickens mate, the sperm is stored in a tube. The last to go in will be the first to come out. It depends on frequency of mating and all that, but the odds are if that Orpington is mating with the hens, he is much more likely to be the daddy than the Ameraucana.

I don’t think the humidity would be your problem with the split hatch. The purpose of keeping the right humidity is to control how much moisture the egg loses before hatch. Getting the right humidity is important, but there is a pretty wide range of what will actually work. And it is average humidity that counts more than any instantaneous snapshot of humidity. If you want, run it a little low on humidity a couple of days after the first hatch to balance it out.

I think your problem will be that the first chicks will get the later eggs dirty. They will smear all kinds of gunk on them. This gunk can collect bacteria and cause bacteria to get inside the some of the other eggs. Not only does your risk of an exploding egg increase, the incubator might just start to stink.

If you decide to do this, I’d recommend cleaning the incubator and eggs pretty well after the first hatch is over. Your risk of the eggs getting bacteria inside goes up a little bit even if you do this since you are removing the bloom, but if you do a good job of cleaning, maybe you can keep the bacteria away so there is not any there to infect the eggs.

A normal way to do this is to have two separate incubators, one purely for incubation and one to use only as a hatcher.

Good luck!

 

[aimeesue2118]

Thanks for the comments! The majority of the eggs were collected before the switch-a-roo, so I'm pretty sure of parentage. I think another hen is going broody though, so I may be in luck there! I'd rather put these with a broody hen and not do anything to mess up the school hatch!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh, yeah. I love my broody's. I just don't have enough of them.

I applaud you for doing the school hatch.