Why both an incubator and a hatcher?

[CityGirlintheCountry]

I'm a smidge confused. What is the point of a hatcher? The ones I've seen look just like incubators. Why wouldn't you just leave them in the original incubator?
I understand once they are dry and fluffy you move them to a brooder, but why the hatcher?

 

[freshegg]

I have just the incubator. A hatcher is good if you want to keep your bator real clean and if you have staggered hatches since the eggs dont get turned the last 3 days and the humidity is suppose to be higher.

 

[chubbydog811]

Feel free anyone to correct me, but the hatcher is great if you have a staggered hatch. You set your eggs each week in the 1st incubator, and then come day 18 you set the eggs ready to hatch in the hatcher, and not have to mess around with the others that aren't ready yet (humidity wise)....

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Oooohhhhhh... that makes sense. I guess I thought you weren't supposed to stagger hatches. Hmmmm.
So if I were, theoretically (and you didn't hear it from me), planning on building an incubator I don't really have to build a seperate hatcher as well. (Until, of course, the addiction kicks in and I get sucked into setting staggered hatched too...).
This is likely to get out of hand, isn't it?

 

[Indiana hens]

It is addictive! It is easier to clean a hatcher! Prevents alot of cleaning on the moving parts in an incubator. Not only is the secretions from the cracked egg introduced but the wet ,sometimes bloody, chicks smear it everywhere.

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

So how are the two built different (if I theoretically were going to build either one)?

 

[william9792]

once you hatch eggs the bug will have bit you so you will be hatching eggs all the time, we have to help the chickens take the world over

 

[DawnSuiter]

Hatching is yucky sometimes

I want a hatcher that is easier to clean than a styrofoam incubator because THEN it seems I could make those styro-bators last MUCH MUCH MUCH longer...

 

[Chickapooh23]

Quote:
Last year I had 1 incubator, this year I had 1 incubator but went crazy and order eggs after I already had eggs in my incubator and now I have 2 incubators or 1 hatcher and 1 incubator. And yes its the addiction thing you have to worry about.

I have to clean my hatcher today (my last EE hatched last night) because I am going to move my Buckeye eggs into that and then put my EE eggs I have been collecting for the last week into the small bator until they are all warmed up then I am going to put all of them into 1 bator (which is my hatcher) until the end of next week when I will have to move the EE out and back into the smaller bator because I will need to get my Buckeyes ready to hatch, then I have to clean the hatcher again and put the EE back into the bator/hatcher to hatch at the end of the month. But I can stop if I want to, OK.

 

[Southernbelle]

Quote:
City Girl! What has come over you?!!!!!!!!!

*hangs head in shame* I actually bought everything I need to build-a-bator, too.

Well, sometimes those broodies need a back-up, you know.