Staggered hatch questions?

[riftnreef]

OK, I've heard of folks doing staggered hatches...how does this work? I have a small group of Seramas that my kids are breeding for their 4-H projects, but the window to get them in the bator and out growing is short. My questions are: Can you incubate more than one group of eggs at once? If I were to do that that, how on earth do you handle the lockdown period and still have eggs in the bator that need to be turned? Other advice?..(other then buying another bator?...

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[Smokin Silkies]

You can make your own hatcher or buy one. If you try to hatch the 1st ones in there, it'll be too much humidity for the others and may drown them. I have a staggered hatch right now, but I have another bator I'll be transferring them to on day 18 for lockdown.

 

[riftnreef]

OK...so in doing this, you have to have a seperate hatcher/incubator. Now, if I were to have, say three different hatching dates, maybe a week apart, what about brooding? I would imagine that there would have to be seperate brooders as well? At three weeks there would be a 15 degree difference in temps....man, this is getting tricky.

 

[Smokin Silkies]

Yes, they say to drop the degree by 5 (I think) every week? But I don't always do this. I have a heat lamp in there and LOTS of room. After I take them out of the bator when they've hatched, I put them in the biggest rubbermaid I can find. I bought one just for this reason at walmart for about $7-$8. I put the heat lamp on one side. I don't worry a TON about the exact temp. It's warm in my house, and if they get too hot, the have plenty of room to move to the other side. I've never had them where they were too cold. So, yes your supposed to adjust the temp each week, but I never have and I've never lost one due to that. So I have 2 incubators, one for incubating and the other for hatching, and then my rubbermaid to keep them in for the next month or so.

 

[riftnreef]

Sounds like a plan...

My brooder is about 3' long, and I too don't fuss with the lamp too much and the birds have always done well. I think that is the advantage of brooding open air indoors. Thanks for the help.

 

[dovecanyon]

Here is a picture of a separate hatcher my 11 year old son made out of an old aquarium. It works great. He just plugged the light into a cord with a dimmer switch, put a wire rack in the bottom and covered it with the shelf liner that has holes in it. We are working on a 4-part staggered hatch right now, and are popping in new eggs as soon as the last ones go into the brooder!

We started out with plastic canvas from my craft stash, but even though it has holes it didn't seem to allow enough humidity to reach the air.

We switched to the rubber shelf liner, and the problem was solved.