MARCH Hatch-A-Long 2015: Please Read the First Post to JOIN the H-A-L

rainbowchick said:

So, I have to say, I was pretty disappointed that the eggs I bought were pullet eggs! Has anyone had good luck hatching pullet eggs?

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KittyKat3756 said:

Eggs from young hens are sometimes less fertile if the cockerels have not mated as often with them. This is usually the case at the start of a season when using young birds. Eggs from young hens can be all fertile if the breeder has made sure that the cockerels are mating with the hens sufficiently before selling those eggs. 12 of the eggs in my incubator right now are from hens which have only just come into lay. Based on what the seller said, I am probably the first person to be incubating them. 11 of the 12 of these "pullet" eggs are developing well compared to 8/11 and 10/11 eggs from older hens.

In fact, eggs from older hens are more likely to have problems because egg shells tend to get thinner as a hen gets older. This is especially visible with older egg-laying hybrids as their shells deteriorate to pretty much useless by 3-5 years old (it's generally later for pure bred hens). It is not caused through lack of calcium as such, but because they are worse at producing vitamin D (which is needed to absorb calcium).

As you can see, there are benefits to using younger or older hens for breeding. I would personally prefer to set a hen's first viable egg rather than one form a 3 year old.

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RogerTheChicken said:

Can I join, I am going to set some eggs next week

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jennianne said:

I ordered lav ams from the same seller for the vday HAL and they were packed great but were small pullet eggs.  I also ordered a mixed lot off ebay which came normal size, avg mid 60's.  Popped them both in my brinsea octagon after a 72 hour settle.

So, long story short, could go wither way IMO.  I still got almost 50% on her eggs but in retrospect I wish I would have put hers in my Brinsea mini and done the larger eggs in the bigger incubator, just in case the size was the issue with humidity.  I do not know if the poster who hatched her lav ams successfully hatched them alone or with larger eggs.  You might want to look through the VDay HAL thread, I think that is where I saw the posts.

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rainbowchick said:

Hi Jennianne-
I remember you from the February HAL. There was another person on the Feb HAL that also had the Lav ams, but never reported hatch rate... Maybe I'll try pm'ing them.
I'm just hoping for 50%... That would be great!
These eggs were all between 40-50 grams, and the silkie eggs were all around 35 grams.
I've read that even though pullet egg chicks they are small when they hatch, they catch up in size by adulthood. So I'm still hopeful it'll all work out!
She didn't send any extra Lav ams, which I was a little disappointed about... So I guess I just need to wait and see!

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