do bantam chicken eggs actually hatch early

[DON956]

I'm no expert, just started hatching 2 months ago and started with Seramas and silkies. Then I heard bantams are hard to hatch and if hatched they are too sensitive to raise. I incubated over 40 seramas and hatched 15 which all died, 12 Silkies 9 hatched and only 1 left till today, got another Silkie egg due on the 10th in lockdown. I'm gonna stick to standard breeds. I set 78 eggs lost 20 total for infertility and blood rings, 58 went to lockdown and started hatching on the 5th I have 45 hatched till today and several more are hatching right now. Haven't lost any yet plus 85 courtnix quails hatched also. Now this are good hatching rates compared to the bantams.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

the one I was worried about i think it quit on me . But I have 2 more that are on days 10 and 11 sneaky kids put them in. it seems Japanese Bantams are really hard to hatch out because the gene they have.

Yes, Japs can be difficult to hatch because of the gene that makes their legs short. It can be lethal to a percentage of chicks (25%, I believe) if the parent stock all have short legs.


I haven't had any problems hatching and keeping my bantams alive. I wouldn't describe them as being delicate either. DON956- where are you sourcing your bantam eggs? Are they yours, from a local breeder or shipped? If your hatch rates are low and the chicks are frail, I'd suspect something else might be going on, either with the breeding stock or the eggs themselves.

 

[AnnikaLF]

These are my sons show birds so we are trying to get a few to add to our flock so he will be able to add to his 5 that he has already and this breed was really HARD to find.

 

[DON956]

First 30 seramas were from eBay so the mailing had something to do with it. Then another 20 from my own flock that started laying during the incubation of the first batch. Also my silkies started laying at the same time but my rooster one morning found him dead without any known cause. 9!eggs of my silkies were set and all have hatched but will die 3 or 4 days later all I got now is the last Silkie hatched on the 8 the and another in lockdown for the 10th. I ended up selling my seramas and silkies.

 

[annmarie33]

I've hatched 2 sets of bantams. The first time I put them on lockdown not knowing that some actually put on lockdown at day 16. They pipped on day 18 and hatched on day 18. So I did research and found out they can hatch early and so I tried the lockdown on day 16 the next time. Well they hatched day 21. So I had 2 different outcomes and the second batch was actually smaller eggs. Either way they were all ok and being in lockdown 1 day and 5 days didn't seem to be a problem. You'll just have to see what happens and make adjustments

 

[DanEP]

I have set 3 batches of bantam cochins and found that mine always hatch late day 19 or early on day twenty. I have noticed that I get much better results if the eggs I set come from hens that are at least a year old.

 

[Calix]

I've only raised three batches of chicks so far, and only 2 bantam chicks, both in my most recent batch last summer. I didn't notice any increased fragility with the bantams (a d'uccle roo and a mottle cochin hen) BUT they were hatchery chicks raised by a broody and not me. If you're having trouble raising them yourself, maybe a broody is the way to go? If you already have bantams, I think most breeds set pretty easy. If you don't have eggs available, you could just do what I did and slip them under the hen at night (she hatched 3 LF, and we snuck 2 bantams and 5 LF under her no problem. Luckily chickens can't count!)

 

[piouspekin]

I buy pekin bantam eggs from all different breeders and incubate them and without fail they always hatch atleast 2 days early so now it has just become the normal thing its difficult however when I mix breeds like I did this time so I had silver spangled hamburg eggs in with pekins. The pekins hatched on the 19th day and the silver spangled hamburgs on the 21st so I had another incubator set up to transfer the pekin chicks into so as not to disturb the spangled eggs.