- Oct 11, 2008
- 10
- 0
- 22
Hi! I have never hatched out chicks before or had a sitting hen so I'm not sure when the eggs should be hatching. My bantam hen decided to start sitting so I took her inside the house and let her sit on some eggs in a cardboard box. I gave her three eggs from larger hens (all different kinds) because I had no fertile bantam eggs available. I gave her the eggs at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon on December 9. I wasn't expecting them to hatch till tomarrow afternoon, because I thought that is when 21 days would be over. To my delight, I heard some peeps last night around 9:00pm, but I thought it would be quite a while till the chick would actually hatch. Then at 9:00 O' clock this morning I looked into her box, and to my surprise their was a wet chick in their that had just hatched!!!
I am wondering if I calculated the time wrong, or if this is just a very early hatch? I haven't heard any other peeping from the other eggs, and am wondering if I should give up on them, or still consider tomarrow to be day 21 on which they should hatch. When do you start counting the days? Does 21 days include the day the eggs were set? I hope someone can tell me. Thanks!
