Egg movement on day 20?

[Bigrooster1]

So I’ve candled them on day 17 and everything looked good. It’s the 20th day, should the egg be moving because as now I have nothing.

 

[Bunbun0412]

I think it depends on the eggs and I don't know a ton but when my Aunt's chicken hatched chicks they were moving and we could hear peeps but I am not sure if you are able to her them through the incubator.

 

[Rm chickens]

Alot of times the day before they hatch things are relatively quite. Ive got a bunch hatching right now but yesterday I was pecking on the side of incubator and wasn't getting any reaction from the chicks. So i would not worry

 

[Ridgerunner]

First relax. I know, easy for me to say. But you are probably doing great.

Are you counting the days correctly? That is a common mistake on here. An egg doesn't have a day's worth of development the instant it goes in the incubator. It takes 24 hours for the egg to have a day's worth of development. So you say "one" the day after they go in. An easy way to check your counting is the day of the week they go in is the day of the week the 21 days of development are up. If you started them on a Sunday, the 21 days are up on a Sunday.

The 21 days is not cast in stone. It is a general target. For several different reasons it is not unusual for eggs to hatch 2 days and maybe more early or late. Heredity, humidity, how and how long the eggs were stored, and just differences in individual eggs can have an effect. A big contributor can be average incubation temperature. If your incubator is a bit warm the eggs can hatch early. If it is a bit cool thy can be late. Do not do anything drastic or dramatic based on the 21 day thing. People have thrown away perfectly good eggs because of not understanding that.

Each hatch is different. Sometimes you can see some eggs wiggle as they move into position to hatch, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you can hear some chirp after they internal pip, sometimes you can't. Pecking on the incubator with your fingertips can sometimes stir them up and get some chirping, but not always.

I know how tough it is to wait but patience is usually your best friend. I don't know of anything you can do at this point to help or improve the hatch. There are things you can do that might harm the hatch. So try to be patent, hard as it is. And let us know how it goes.