Just completed my first hatch (!) and got 24 chicks out of 31 mutt eggs. I think I did pretty well for my first time. Of the 7 that didn't hatch, 5 were very very large buff orp X's, and 2 EE x's. I thought I had read somewhere that both of these types were difficult to hatch. I opened them all up and the very large eggs all had 99% developed chicks- maybe a day away from pipping? The EE's were smaller and less developed. 3 or so of the very large eggs did hatch a few days ago without a problem but for the others I was wondering, are extremely large eggs difficult to hatch?
Sometimes the huge eggs are double yolkers/twins and those are extremly hard to hatch. THey usually die in the shell.
That is first time I have heard of that so I am interested to hear what's up. With them being so far along in development I wonder what happened. AL
i myself do not put eggs that are bigger or small for this just makes for a hard hatch, don't know why but every time i try one that is that way it does not hatch or if it does something is wrong with the chick, and i hatch about 200 a month. william
Thanks William, with hatching over 200 a month I guess you would know! Still don't understand why but I think I will try some of the XL ones again this next hatch and see if it really is a trend.
i hatch eggs all year and i know the smaller eggs have smaller chicks i dont know about large eggs never paid no mind
Buff Orpington eggs are not hard to hatch. Generally, setting eggs that are either undersize or oversize is not recommended. At best, hatch rates are likely to suffer.
