We just put our very first hatch on lock down tonight. Upon doing this we noticed 2 had pip's on them. While candling as far as we could tell everything looked okay from what we have learned on here. You could see a lot of their beaks in the air sac area & seen movement while candling most of them...as well as hearing lots of chirps. Its been 3 hours since lock down & one of them has already broke through the membrane & 2 more have pip's on them. Doesn't this seem too early for this to be happening? All of our eggs are from our own flock. We have 1 Rhode Island Red Rooster, 2 Rhode Island Red Hens, 4 Buff Orpington Hens, & 5 Black Sex Linked Hens. I'm very curious how these chicks are going to look when they hatch. But now am very nervous that it may be too soon for them to be hatching. We started with 16 eggs, after candling on day 10 we only found 1 to not be fertile. Seen lots of movement from all the other ones, but were questioning 2 of them....we weren't questioning those 2 after tonight. They definately grew!
If you're hearing chipping, you have internal pips. It can take up to 24 hours until it externally pips, then up to 24 hours more until it hatches. It's possible a hen sat on them prior to you collecting the eggs, it's enough to start incubation and cause a day or more early hatch. Or have you calculated your days correctly? Or your temp may be running a bit high. No worries. Keep the humidity to 60-65% and don't open the incubator until all have hatched.