On day 11 of 2 eggs set in bator I put in 6 Bantam eggs. I was hoping til the last minute that my little Serama girl would go broody,but, no dice ,so, in a bit of a panic, I put them in my bator along with the 2 already in thinking that if she did go broody, I'd just put them under her.. so far,she's not cooperating! I know, pretty foolish, but, how am I going to work this at lockdown? I read a bit about dry hatching at 50 % humidity. Any ideas? Another problem is turning: my two eggs need to stop turning,but, what about the Bantam eggs? I ordered one of those MINI Chickbators that supposedly hatches 3 eggs. I was thinking that I could put the two at shutdown in that and then put all in a styrofoam box with hygrometer. Any thoughts about that hairbrained idea???! Any input,experiences, thoughts, etc. would be greatly appreciated. This is my first hatch and just got the Seramas not thinking that the little girl would be laying so darned soon! Thanking you all in advance!
I have done staggered hatches in the past and my incubator is homemade which I handturn the eggs. All I did was quit turning the ones that should be in lockdown and only turned the others. Everything else I did as normal. When the chicks hatched and appeared to fluff up I removed them from the incubator. I wouldn't worry too much. I sort of have a staggered hatch right now. All eggs went in at the same time but some are Seramas which are due to hatch sooner than the other eggs. If the little incubator you bought is one of those dome shaped ones with the yellow bottom I wouldn't bother moving those eggs. I had one of those in the past and never hatched a thing out of it. One more thing might just be a coincidence but my Seramas would go broody at 9 - 12 eggs when I left them in the coop. I just let them keep the eggs and usually by 9 eggs they went broody.
My last chicks hatched 3 days early and I was turning my eggs right up until I discovered my first pips. The lady I bought the eggs from had told me that she frequently experiences early hatches from her chicken eggs. This was the best hatch I have had in years.
Thanks, you guys,so much, for the "pearls"! I got nervous leaving the eggs in because I had read posts on here that said that the hatch rate greatly decreases after 10 days. Did you find that that's true? Believe me, I'd rather she hatch them herself if that's what she wants to do. She just gave me another egg yesterday,so that makes 7. I left that one in her nestbox just in case. I just wish that I had more experience so I wouldn't be potentially harming any babies!
