somewhat of an error in my part

[lawless23456]

hi all

i am curently incubating 11 mixed bantam eggs bought from the popular auction site, due to hatch a week thursday, now my problem is in all my excitement i have gone and bought 12 light sussex eggs yesterday due to arrive tomorrow, my incubator is big enough to fit them in aswell but obviously while the others are due to hatch im not sposed to open the incubator in order to retain humidity, but what will i do about turning the 12 sussex eggs? urgh this thing gets me so excited! im angry at myself i hope this wont be to much of a problem please help!

lawless

[MaureenHall]

Think you might have to get another incubator!

Whereabouts are you? If you're not too far from me, I have a friend who might lend you one (Lynda's got mine!)

[Bramble-Poultry]

When they arrive they will need to sit for at least 24 hours anyway to allow the germ cell to settle, so that buys you a day.

Obviously the longer you leave them the fertility will drop but eggs can be up to 14 days old before setting. (obviously you will need to know how old they are already)

What type of incubator have you got as there are methods of turning eggs without opening the lid with certain incubators - even manual ones!. And for the first few days of incubation you can reduce the turns down to just 3 (the absolute minimum number of turns daily), this will limit your humidity loss.

[Bramble-Poultry]

I can probably lend you one too - where are you.

However saying that if Maureen is too far then so are we!!

[lawless23456]

I'm in Neath south Wales a bit far me thinks

[lawless23456]

so my eggs arrived this morning all arrived safely hmm still dunno what to do about this think im gonna have to just put them in the incubator tomorrow and have to work around it and hope that all works out ok! they say you live and learn anyhow

lawless

[CoraxAurata]

so my eggs arrived this morning all arrived safely hmm still dunno what to do about this think im gonna have to just put them in the incubator tomorrow and have to work around it and hope that all works out ok! they say you live and learn anyhow

lawless

If you have a chicken owning neigbour there is a good chance they'd have a broody you could borrow at this time of year..... Ask about....

[Bramble-Poultry]

What type of incubator have you got?

[Polly Fouracre]

Stick the eggs in quick! They'll be fine.

[Scottishnewbie]

but don't put them anywhere near your dishwasher!!

[lawless23456]

i've put the eggs in today but had to leave three out because the bators not as big as i thought, so the three eggs will sit until next week when i will put them in as a gamble, the temperature dropped to 32 for a few minutes before it got back up to temperature hope the other eggs wont be to damaged

[Bramble-Poultry]

They will be fine, just turn the new eggs 3 times a day so the lid isn't off your incubator too long and too often. The trick will be putting the new eggs somewhere safe and warm for 20 minutes whist you clean the incubator out after the hatch.

when you put the remaining eggs in next week make a pencil mark on the egg so you know which ones were placed in later - it will help when the first lot are all hatching as you will know which ones should have hatched and therefore which to remove if unhatched.

If its a polystyrene incubator you can make a semi automatic turner for it using knitting needles then you do not have to open the incubator at all to turn your eggs.

[lawless23456]

They will be fine, just turn the new eggs 3 times a day so the lid isn't off your incubator too long and too often. The trick will be putting the new eggs somewhere safe and warm for 20 minutes whist you clean the incubator out after the hatch.

when you put the remaining eggs in next week make a pencil mark on the egg so you know which ones were placed in later - it will help when the first lot are all hatching as you will know which ones should have hatched and therefore which to remove if unhatched.

If its a polystyrene incubator you can make a semi automatic turner for it using knitting needles then you do not have to open the incubator at all to turn your eggs.

no worries on the safe warm place, we have a lizard and his vivarium is quite warm around 36 celcius i think, so we will take him out and put them in there when we have to clean in incubator out next week! it is the polystyrene type how do you make the turner thing?

lawless

[Bramble-Poultry]

putting it bluntly, you jab the knitting needles through the sides of the polystytrene side by side, about a half inch of the base of the incubator, and far enough apart so that the egg can straddle over the two knitting needles, then when you want to turn the eggs, you rotate one of the knitting needle from outside, and the friction will turn the egg over inside the incubator. You can aid this by putting elastic bands around the needles to help them grip the egg. Remember to turn them in one direction once, and then the opposite direction the next time!!

A more sophisticated technique would employ proper wooden dowelling etc, but if all you have is knitting needles..........

[MaureenHall]

That is just ingenious!!!! I'm going to try that I'll test it out on a spare (big) polystyrene box I've got that I use as a brooder box so that I can get the technique right before doing it on hopefully fertile eggs. It'll definitely help with keeping the temperature more constant won't it. It's just the humidity bit that needs sorting now!