Staggered hatch advice

[peepers93]

I currently have 14 Cream Legbar eggs in my Hovabator Genesis. I will be getting 20 more next week. By the time they come in the mail, my first batch should be on day 15 or 16. I was considering getting one of those cheap Little Giant incubators to use as a hatcher. I know most people highly dislike them as an incubator, but has anyone used one as a hatcher? Or would it be better to leave all the eggs in the Hovabator? I just worry about the second batch not being able to be turned while the first is in lockdown. Any advice? I want to give all the eggs the best chance possible to hatch, and I'm not sure what the best option is.

 

[JaeG]

I've done many staggered quail hatches in my incubator. Can you bump up the humidity enough to cope with you opening the incubator to turn the newer eggs and have the newer eggs in an egg carton so you can tilt them all at the same time? Once the hatch of the first batch is done lower the humidity to lower than usual as the first batch would've missed out on losing some moisture during those days of high humidity. There are lots of charts online as to how big the air cell should be by what day so use that as your guide to check they are where they should be.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Personally I’d get the LG. A lot of chicks have been hatched in LG’s. They are not as horrible as many people say. Get it as early as you can and start playing with it to get used to it and get it stabilized. If you are concerned about that and plan to do staggered hatches much, spring for a better incubator. A second incubator used as a hatcher makes life so much simpler if you are doing staggered hatches.

Humidity and turning are not the only issues with a staggered hatch. The first chicks that hatch poop. I have a 1588, not sure which Hovabator you have, but I imagine they use that plastic tray in the bottom that has the water reservoirs. Within two or three days of the chicks pooping in those it starts to stink. I’ve had regular hatches drag out enough that became an issue, let alone a staggered hatch. Also the chicks crawl around. They will slime the later eggs, making it real possible bacteria will get inside the egg and kill the chick developing in there.

I imagine you have the 42 egg incubator. For the later 20 eggs you only need 3 rows in the turner. You can take the other three turner rows out and build a fence across the incubator to keep the chicks away from the later eggs or put a mesh basket over the early eggs to keep the hatched chicks contained. You still will need to clean the incubator after the first hatch. If you can keep the chicks away from the other end there isn’t a lot moving so they aren’t in much danger from the moving parts of the turner.

You can try it in one incubator but I think getting a second for use as a hatcher greatly reduces your risks.

 

[peepers93]

Personally I’d get the LG. A lot of chicks have been hatched in LG’s. They are not as horrible as many people say. Get it as early as you can and start playing with it to get used to it and get it stabilized. If you are concerned about that and plan to do staggered hatches much, spring for a better incubator. A second incubator used as a hatcher makes life so much simpler if you are doing staggered hatches.

Humidity and turning are not the only issues with a staggered hatch. The first chicks that hatch poop. I have a 1588, not sure which Hovabator you have, but I imagine they use that plastic tray in the bottom that has the water reservoirs. Within two or three days of the chicks pooping in those it starts to stink. I’ve had regular hatches drag out enough that became an issue, let alone a staggered hatch. Also the chicks crawl around. They will slime the later eggs, making it real possible bacteria will get inside the egg and kill the chick developing in there.

I imagine you have the 42 egg incubator. For the later 20 eggs you only need 3 rows in the turner. You can take the other three turner rows out and build a fence across the incubator to keep the chicks away from the later eggs or put a mesh basket over the early eggs to keep the hatched chicks contained. You still will need to clean the incubator after the first hatch. If you can keep the chicks away from the other end there isn’t a lot moving so they aren’t in much danger from the moving parts of the turner.

You can try it in one incubator but I think getting a second for use as a hatcher greatly reduces your risks.

Thank you for the advice, that's pretty much everything I was worried about. I've only hatched one batch so far but they definitely made a huge mess and I can definitely see that causing a bacterial issue.

I have the 1588, but it came with the Incuturn egg turner, so there are no rows you can take out. But I've been hand turning and using an egg carton anyways because these eggs were shipped and had bad air cells.

I probably will go ahead and get a LG for now. I actually just found one that's been used once for $20 so I'll probably get that. If I begin hatching a lot I'll get a better one, but after these two batches hatch I won't be doing anymore this year.