Woop Woop!!! Staggered hatches working

[raymondjames]

Here is a Hova-Bator method concerning staggered hatches for people that dont have time to turn them 3 times a day (meaning you're using the automatic turner)

1- Get an egg carton (or two or three

) and put all your current incubating eggs in there for now. Set them aside (if you're worried, put them under a lightbulb or in your hatcher for now).
2- Pop out the small metal clips and plastic circles on the egg racks on the side with the motor on your turner.
3- Push the small plastic holders that keep the racks in place in, and then get your main connecting rack out of the way.
4- Remove the egg turners on the side farthest from the motor. For every 4 LF eggs you need to put in lockdown, take out a rack.
5- Once you've taken out the racks needed, secure the pins and plastic circles back on the racks still in the turner.
6- Put the turner in your HovaBator and place the lockdown eggs in the space where the removed egg racks were, so they are not turned.
7- Put all the turning eggs back in the racks.
8- Plug the turner into the outlet, and adjust temperature.
9- If you don't have a hatcher, then remove the turner entirely when no eggs need to be turned. Wait for your babies to emerge!!!

What do you think???

 

[Melissa Rose]

I have a staggered hatch coming up next week and I am using my old still air hovabator as a hatcher. I gave it a trial run with a couple of silkie eggs first last week so I hope it does good for me next week. I was going to use Pete55's advice on lockdown and not officially lockdown till the first pip. I will stop turning on the 18 day mark for each batch but not "lockdown" till I see one pip. I sure hope this works

 

[Melissa Rose]

What breeds are in your different batches?

 

[raymondjames]

in my sig:
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[raymondjames]

Quote:
what's that about lockdown??? I think that might hurt/make the chick dizzy. My method is working well, about to tap eggs with stick to see if they chirp

 

[Gypsy07]

Pete's advice on lockdown that you're thinking of following is specifically for when you're concerned that your eggs haven't lost enough moisture. Unless you have reason to think that this is the case, you should probably just run a standard lockdown and raise humidity on day 18 when you stop turning.

But I doubt that delaying raising the humidity would make the chicks dizzy. I haven't a clue why anyone would think that. Dizziness is generally caused by (a) spinning around repeatedly or (b) inner ear problems. Neither of which are anything to do with low humidity...