New here - two hatch dates

[Earth Lover]

I'm new here so not sure if I'm posting in the right way. Before I discovered the hatch-a-long, I decided to incubate eggs to hatch the day before Easter. We have had several prior successful hatches.
I may have been a bit over ambitious trying to build our black copper marans flock and hatching some for my niece and her husband. I didn't quite think this all the way through to the end. YIKES. I set 16 on Saturday, March 30 and then another 16 four days later on Wednesday April 3 (and have had a couple quitters in each batch). Uh, what do I do now that we are preparing for the hatch? I've debated going and buying a second incubator for the ones hatching to keep the others on the auto-turner. Or turning the later ones by hand the last few days but then I'd have to keep opening the incubator. Help?! Thanks in advance.

 

[crazy4ChickensNducks]

Welcome! Good luck with your hatch

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Personally, I'd get another incubator to use as a hatcher. It will allow you to do staggered hatches to your heart's content. Plus, you'll probably find that you need more than one incubator.

Best wishes for a great hatch!

 

[Chicksnmind]

I’m in the same boat. Set 5 eggs on March 30 then 2 more on the 31st. Then I put two more in last week after I found a egg from my senior hen. She rarely lays and the last wasn’t fertile and then it needed a friend. The friend egg didn’t make it so looks like I might end up going to tractor supply to buy it a friend later.


So I’m waiting I think until day 19 or internal pips to do lock down . I will take the turner out today or tomorrow. As long as there aren’t any external pips it should be ok to manually hand turn . Plus chicks might turn for you.