Early Peeps

[swiggity_swarren]

Hey y'all!
I'm incubating for the first time, and as I was prepping my incubator for lockdown, one of my eggs had the audacity to peep at me as I was taking it out of the incubator (to a towel so I could get my auto turner out) and it almost gave me a fright! Does this mean I'll see little chicks in the next 48hrs? Day 18 just started for them (I started incubating in the evening) and I wasn't expecting them to come this early. The particular egg that peeped is pretty large, and it continues to occasionally peep and wiggle (I got barnyard chicks, so I have no idea what breed). Any big brains out there who can help me hypothesize? Thanks in advance!

 

[Tex452]

I have had them hatch that early before, it’s sad that too high temperatures can cause this, but I regulate my with two govee thermometers?
I believe some chickens grow faster than others, and like corturnix quail they hatch early?

 

[swiggity_swarren]

I've kept my incubator at a steady 100⁰, and my humidity has been between 44-50% until about two hours ago (I raised it to around 66% for lockdown). Perhaps it was a little on the warm side?

What surprises me is that it's one of my larger eggs causing the ruckus instead of my smaller eggs, the latter of which I'm guessing would be closer to the bantam variety (and therefore be the eggs that hatch first). Time will tell!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum! Glad you joined!

Different things can affect when the eggs hatch. Heredity, humidity, how and how long the eggs were stored before incubation started, and just differences in the eggs. A big factor is average incubating temperature. If the average incubating temperature is high, they can be early. If it is cool they can be late.

Did you calibrate your incubator? Many times the presets at the factory are wrong. The display may show that it is set correctly but the actual temperature is wrong. Mine was a couple of degrees high when I got it, I had to reset it to get to the proper temperature.

Whether under a broody hen or in my calibrated incubator my eggs often hatch two days early. I think that is due to heredity. That does not mean that all of them always hatch early, just that many often do.

I've read that smaller eggs can, may, might, sometimes, occasionally hatch earlier than larger eggs. Personally I have not seen that but I've seen that possibility mentioned on here by people I trust. A couple of times I've paid attention to that with my hatches and have not seen it with my eggs.

I've had hatches in my incubator and under a broody that all eggs had hatched within 16 hours of each other. Man, that is nice. I've had several hatches where the hatch was spread out over a couple of days.

One incubator hatch I had one chick hatch a couple of days early, fairly late at night. I did not see any pips in the other eggs until just before I went to bed the following night. When I woke up the next morning an additional 16 chicks had hatched and the hatch was over.

One time under a broody hen I had one chick hatch late on a Monday night. She did not bring her chicks off of the nest until Friday morning, about 80 hours later. I don't know when her other chicks hatched but I have to assume at least some were much later than the first chicks.

I don't know how your hatch has progressed, whether that early egg was an anomaly or if they have all already hatched. It never hurts to confirm the incubator is working correctly but don't go overboard on just one hatch. They can vary a lot.

Good luck!

 

[swiggity_swarren]

Thank you so much for your wisdom!

I woke up to two littles in my incubator this morning. They seem strong and fully developed.