Can a Late Egg Catch Up??

[wsdareme]

I set 7 BCM eggs on 2/2. I only had 6 that I’d been saving up (the BCM pullet doesn’t lay every day, so it took me a while to accumulate eggs). I got impatient, so I went out to the refrigerator and found what I guessed was the latest of her eggs that were in there. That was #7. I put them in the incubator and we were on our way.

Well, the next day she laid an egg, so I took the refrigerated egg out and replaced it with the new egg. I marked the dates of hatch on all the eggs. I removed the refrigerated egg and cracked it open to see – to my surprise it looked like it had started developing just fine.

I’ve been curious as to when the egg that got started a day late would hatch. I expected it to hatch a day later than the others, which are hatching today. Well, I’m wrong! I just noticed that the chick has pipped so apparently it ‘caught up’ with the others. Is that possible?

 

[duckyfromoz]

21 days is really just an average- quite often there will be some early and some late- but generally most will hatch on day 21 if the incubating conditions are right. It may be that that egg would have been the first to hatch - and early - if it had been set the same day as the others. Eggs are good for holding temp- it can take hours for the egg to reach 100 degrees in the centre once put into the incubator - and vice versa when loosing heat. Being that the egg was laid fresh- it may have still been warmer in the inside ( from being inside the hen ) - meaning it didnt take as long to reach 100 degrees when placed into the incubator.

 

[Gypsy07]

I had one that did the same thing recently. I had three eggs that were all set on the same day, and one egg that was set a day later. Come day 21 for the first three, and all of them pipped pretty much simultaneously and hatched very fast. While they were hatching, the late one pipped too, and struggled his way out really fast. I wondered if hearing all the peeping and pecking maybe encouraged him to get in on the action?

Duckyfromoz's idea about the late egg still being warm is probably quite accurate. My late egg was one I grabbed out of the nesting box and slammed straight in the bator, but the other three had been stored in a fairly cool room before I set them.