Stagger Hatching??

[Cherterr]

I have ONE incubator w/28 holes. Currently, there are 4 Silkie eggs with 10 days left. I ALSO have 6 newly collected Silkie eggs that need to go INTO the incubator. If I DO that... ?? Will the extra humidity at 3 day lockdown mess them up? ??? So many questions.. HAS ANYONE done this? What about during the others hatching.

The incubator has an egg turner, which I was going to take out at last 3 days... ARGH... lol.. the more I think.. maybe I just better get another smaller incubator???
THANKS... and HELP!!

 

[Cjohnsonis]

Following! Cuz I put 12 eggs in my incubator and two days later I put another 12 in so I'm hoping they can all just lock down together

 

[Cherterr]

My egg batches are 8 days apart. I'm currently watching one from first group pip in the secondary incubator. Yaaay
Yeah...2 days should be no problem.

 

[JaeG]

The first week is the most essential for an egg to be turned. And until your first eggs start to externally pip there's no danger to them if you open the incubator 3 times a day to quickly hand turn the younger eggs. Once the first batch are externally pipping skipping a few days of turning won't worry your second batch.

It might pay to weigh the second lot of eggs so that you can track their weight loss. I love this method so much more than scrutinising the air cells. It sounds complicated but it's really easy once you've got it all set up, and then you'll be able to adjust the humidity to help them lose the optimum amount of weight. Weighing in grams is more precise.

Find the average weight of your eggs. Either weigh them together or individually (then you need to add all of the weights together) and divide by the number of eggs you have. Create a graph with the days along the bottom from 0-21 and weight up the side (just do the weight range you will need for your eggs). Plot the average weight on day 0. Work out what 14% (that's the optimal weight loss for chicken eggs) of the start average weight is and minus that number from the start average weight (plotted on day 0). This is what your eggs should weigh by day 21. Plot that number (start average weight minus 14%) on day 21. Draw a straight line between the point on day 0 and the point on day 21. That's your average weight loss over the course of incubation. On any day you can weigh your eggs and work out if they are on track by whether they are above, below or on the line. Because you are taking the average it won't matter if you have to remove eggs that aren't developing, you'll just be dividing your overall weight by that many less eggs.

Hope that all makes sense.

You may just have to give your second batch of eggs a few days of lower humidity (than what you would normally set eggs at) to compensate for the higher humidity while the first batch hatch.