healthy chicks, consistant early hatches

[Delight in Dominiques]

Here is one I am trying to figure out. I have a homemade cabinet style incubator and hatcher. I have been having a issue with the chicks hatching out a day early, thru the last five hatches. TEmps are spot on with a range of 99.2 to 99.7. Incubator side I run at 40% humidity. The eggs are set in the hatcher side at day 18 with humidity at 60%. My hatch rates are never below 90% and all chicks are healthy with no defects. The incubator and hatcher both run with air circulation via a computer fan which is set on medium speed. I have calibrated all temperature gauges and mercury and they are spot on. After reading thru several threads early hatches are from high temps. I was thinking slow down the fan speed?

 

[chixruleboysdrool]

Well, if you are having good hatches I think that you should leave it the way it is. An early hatch seems really good to me because I am getting impatient on my hatch even though I put them in 5 days ago.

Good luck with your hatch!

 

[Ridgerunner]

High average incubating temperatures are a real common cause of early hatching. Some other things that come to mind are heredity, slightly low humidity during incubation, improper storage before starting incubation (storing them in warm temperatures so they possibly start developing. Storing them in low humidity.) Small eggs tend to hatch earlier than regular sized eggs. Large ones can be later. Some breeds are known to hatch early, but I think that goes back to egg size. I had not heard anything about the air blowing on them, though that might dry them out a bit faster than normal, getting back to the humidity thing.

There are probably other things that can affect the timing. Maybe you can see something here that will help explain it. If they are consistantly OK, I would not worry about it a whole lot.

If they were consistently a day late, I'd ask if you are counting the days right, but with them being early, that is not likely the cause. But the rule is that they should hatch on the day of the week that you set them. If you start them on a Tuesday, they should hatch onb a Tuesday.

 

[yinepu]

mine also hatch out a day early.. and i have 0 defects and healthy chicks with 90-100% hatch rate on my eggs (and pretty darn good hatch rates on shipped eggs)

the way I look at it 21 days for chickens is the "average" date to shoot for... since I have yet to see a broody hen read the book on how it's "supposed" to work out, I'm not going to stress on my chicks hatching out a day early!

for example:
Muscovys usually hatch out anywhere between 33 and 35 days.. yet everything you read says it's 35 days for incubation instead of a range.. so it seems to be popular opinion as to what the incubation (or gestation for other critters) should be.. just look at people.. everyone says "9 months" but how many people actually give birth 9 months to the day of getting preggers?

 

[Backwoods Bntms]

My bantam eggs always pip on day 19 and there out by 20 or its no go. Lare fowl eggs pip on day 20 and hatch on 21 every time. I think the smaller eggs get up to temp and start developing earlier. Don't know for sure it is just what I see.

jj

 

[cmom]

It could be if you are storing eggs for a few days before putting them in your incubator and the temp is around 80 they could be starting to develop before you put them in the incubator. You can't tell by candling. It has happened to me too. I have had some hatch on day 18. I put the eggs in lockdown in the morning and in the evening I had a chick. This has happened a couple of times.