Newby Incubation Question

[mmtruckauth]

We are incubating our first set of chicken eggs. We are on day 18 of our first set of eggs and have stopped turning them. While googling tonight I read that when the eggs are ready to hatch they are in something called lockdown. What I am wondering is we have another set of eggs in the incubator with them that are 5 days behind them. Can I still open the incubator to turn them or what should do. We didn't realize that we shouldn't mix hatch times. Please advise us what to do.

 

[tec27]

you're in a little pickle. because not only should you turn the others, but you also have to raise the humidity during lockdown for the eggs that are 18 days old. Raising the humidity for these eggs, may actually hurt the other eggs that are 5 days behind. The eggs at day 18 could be moved to another incubator. Like a homemade one or a brooder. Just a box with a closed lid that maintains good temp.

 

[sumi]

When you lockdown you stop turning the eggs and up the humidity in the incubator to 60% + Since you are doing a staggered hatch I'd suggest you wait until you see signs of the first set of eggs hatching, i.e. pipping, before bumping up the humidity and try to keep it around 65% max. Turn the remainder of the eggs once or twice a day, if you can. During the late stage of incubation turning is not as essential, so if you have a lot of pips and you don't want to open the incubator it wouldn't matter if you skip a turning session. Best of luck with your hatch!

 

[mattman1978]

I'd suggest you take a few rails off the auto turner so that you can run the turner with the eggs that need to be turned and let the others set still to hatch. Humidity is a bigger issue. Altho, I've seen and heard of people having eggs hatch while turning during normal incubation (eggs they forgot were ready) without increasing humidity. I'd be worried about the chicks getting under the turner and getting hurt or caught by it as they hatched. You can put the eggs that is going to hatch into a plastic tub inside the incubator. (Make sure you have holes drilled into it for air exchange). I had some chicks hatch and they were "wild" and so I put them in a plastic container with holes in it. I put a paper towel over it before putting the lid on. Put the lid on and then inverted it so they were standing on the paper towel on the lid. Worked perfectly. Set it back in the incubator. They were warm and could dry out and they couldn't disturb the other eggs.

 

[orpingtonsuk]

Yes not a good idea, can ruin chances for both lots of eggs. Especially the new ones, x

 

[mmtruckauth]

Thanks for all your replys. We dont have a seperate incubtor at this time, so we are holding off on raising the humidity for as long as possible. And when we do raise it we will raise it to the lowest possible amount. As for the turning we were able to move the eggs to different places in the incubator so that we can put a hanger in through the vent holes and turn them.
We hope that this works and at least saves us a few of our babies. In the mean time we will be trying to set up a different incubator for the others.
We will let everyone know how it turns out. Our first batch should be hatching Friday or Saturday.