Hatch Span

[cogorman]

Howdy All You helpful Folks,
Our Chicks are hatching!!! This is so cool and my 12 year old I'm-too-cool-for-this-when-can-I-play-video-games son has not left our incubator's side in hours. Here's our worry, the first chick popped out, litterally, at day 20.5 days. Two streched their tired little legs about 3 hours later. It's now day 21 and there are 7 more eggs with visible pips. There are a total of 19 eggs in the incubator. SO, at the slow rate they are hatching how long before we have to worry about the early birds starving before we risk taking them out by unlocking the incubabator? I read on this forum anywhere from 5 to 48 hours!

 

[bahamas]

i'd say wait a day until the hatched ones are dry and them have a box ner by make a quicky and take them out quickly and keep the bator shut until the rest hatch. thats what i did. Becareful not to injure the eggs that havent hatched.

 

[Ridgerunner]

With chicks that hatch on a Monday, hatcheries ship them out on a Monday and they are usually delivered Wednesday with no problems. Some Monday shipments that arrive on Thursday are fine. You have at least 48 hours after the chick hatches and probably quite a bit longer before you have problems. Once they are all hatched and dried off, it is a good idea to get them to food and water as soon as you can to relieve possible stress, but there is no panic. A hen hatching chicks may wait 48 hours to bring them off the nest if eggs are still hatching.

All mine hatched with 18 hours of the first one hatching and I took them out the next day, so about 36 hours after the first one hatched. All 17 are doing fine. I heard a lot of peeping while they were in the incubator, but I never heard the distress peeping that a chick will make when it is truly hungry or thirsty.

Good luck! It is both exciting and nerve racking.