how to plan hatching in cabinet incubators?

[HomesteadNowhere]

I like to go DIY and save money but I'm seriously considering saving up for a GQF sportsman incubator. I have some breeding experiments planned and I have people locally I can get hatching eggs from as well. I'm wondering how you plan hatchings in a cabinet though?
The sportsman can hold 270 chicken eggs in the trays. Hatching drawer capacity is about 72 chicken eggs. I would not be buying a dedicated hatching incubator.
3 shelves, 90 eggs per shelf, 45 eggs per tray.
Do you just number your trays and don't put in more than 70-ish rounding up assuming losses? Is it designed with the 90 per shelf for that reason, assuming you'll end up with around 72 at hatching?

I'll be having plenty of eggs so that shouldn't be an issue, I would be able to set new eggs every couple days. Having a full incubator would overrun me after a while I'm just wondering how it's supposed to work, with what seems to be the ideal of having the rotation of full trays of eggs and hatching. I'm also considering hatching eggs for friends in the future which would put me at max capacity like that for a while most likely. I want to know ahead of time what it entails before I unwittingly accept something like that.

Thanks!

 

[R2elk]

I like to go DIY and save money but I'm seriously considering saving up for a GQF sportsman incubator. I have some breeding experiments planned and I have people locally I can get hatching eggs from as well. I'm wondering how you plan hatchings in a cabinet though?
The sportsman can hold 270 chicken eggs in the trays. Hatching drawer capacity is about 72 chicken eggs. I would not be buying a dedicated hatching incubator.
3 shelves, 90 eggs per shelf, 45 eggs per tray.
Do you just number your trays and don't put in more than 70-ish rounding up assuming losses? Is it designed with the 90 per shelf for that reason, assuming you'll end up with around 72 at hatching?

I'll be having plenty of eggs so that shouldn't be an issue, I would be able to set new eggs every couple days. Having a full incubator would overrun me after a while I'm just wondering how it's supposed to work, with what seems to be the ideal of having the rotation of full trays of eggs and hatching. I'm also considering hatching eggs for friends in the future which would put me at max capacity like that for a while most likely. I want to know ahead of time what it entails before I unwittingly accept something like that.

Thanks!

The best way to handle hatching with a cabinet incubator is to have a separate hatcher that has the capacity to handle one tray from the incubator.

Fill one tray once a week. Add it to the incubator. Eighteen days later, move the eggs from that tray to the hatcher. By adding one tray a week, you will have a hatch going on once a week. By not hatching in the cabinet incubator, you don't have to be concerned about changing humidity levels for lockdown. By not hatching in the incubator, the incubator will stay nice and clean.

The other way to hatch in the cabinet incubator is by filling the incubator all at once. When lockdown time comes, you can hatch in the bottom hatching tray and all the rest of the trays too.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

The best way to handle hatching with a cabinet incubator is to have a separate hatcher that has the capacity to handle one tray from the incubator.

Fill one tray once a week. Add it to the incubator. Eighteen days later, move the eggs from that tray to the hatcher. By adding one tray a week, you will have a hatch going on once a week. By not hatching in the cabinet incubator, you don't have to be concerned about changing humidity levels for lockdown. By not hatching in the incubator, the incubator will stay nice and clean.

The other way to hatch in the cabinet incubator is by filling the incubator all at once. When lockdown time comes, you can hatch in the bottom hatching tray and all the rest of the trays too.

Thanks! I was confused on if you could hatch in all the trays or just the bottom hatching tray. Does that mean you need to buy trays for hatching to switch out with the egg trays? I was looking at the 1202. The website doesn't say anything about hatching the full thing so I wasn't sure.

 

[R2elk]

Thanks! I was confused on if you could hatch in all the trays or just the bottom hatching tray. Does that mean you need to buy trays for hatching to switch out with the egg trays? I was looking at the 1202. The website doesn't say anything about hatching the full thing so I wasn't sure.

I have a cabinet hatcher along with my cabinet incubator. The trays all have lids. Other than that they are the same as the incubation trays in the incubator. I believe that you can buy the lids separately.