Overfilling the bator?

[blasto]

I just received my shipment of silkie eggs and the lovely woman who sent them included 2 1/2 times the number of eggs I had paid her for! I am most appreciative, especially since I know she can charge quite a bit for her eggs. They all arrived safely, but now I am in a bit of a fix. I ordered 4 eggs from her to hatch in my R-com mini (an automatic 3 egg incubator) and she sent 10! With my last hatch I just turned off the auto-turn function and did five regular sized eggs but they all had "floorspace" in the incubator. I could probably cram seven or eight of the silkie eggs in at once, but that would mean piling them on top of one another. I'm thinking that this is sort of what happens under a broody anyway, so is it okay? I figure that since they are shipped eggs I'll be pulling out a few that don't develop, so there will be more space when they actually hatch. Or should I just do 1/2 of them and call it a day? I would hold the rest of them until I candled in case there were a few to discard.

Can anybody help a confused girl out???

 

[speckledhen]

What I usually do when I have too many eggs for the 42 slot turner (like today's setting I just did), I put the extras on the side and hand turn 3 times a day, then at first candling, there are usually some empty slots for the extras to go into. Good luck on your hatch!

 

[Apprentice_egger]

I don't know if these are out of show quality birds or not, but I'd never want to pass up a chance at a great bird. If they're all fertile I'd do my best to get them all to hatch and worry about culling later. Let nature tell you which ones are no good. I don't know if you can make a simple homemade incubator for the extras till you can candle, but that's what I'd do in a pinch.

 

[blasto]

I ended up piling them up. 9 fit in and then when I went to turn this morning one had leaked (I found a tiny hairline crack) so I swapped the last egg in for that one. These are lovely Silkie eggs from Bobbi Porto so I was not about to make an omelet out of the extras!

If more than 6 of them end up developing then I'll have to beg, borrow or steal another incubator so they have room to hatch out.