21 days ago I put three australorp and three Wyandotte eggs under my bantam broody light Sussex and so far no pips or anything. The broody has been coming of the nest up to three times a day some days. Will they still hatch?
They might hatch. There are many possibilities; here are a few:
- Chick embryo died- won't hatch
- embryo did not develop
- chick is too weak to make it out of the egg
- chick is going to hatch late (up to 2-3 days later than hatch date sometimes)
- egg(s) was/were not fertilized to start with
- mother was off eggs for too long - they got too cold and won't hatch.
Give the eggs a chance. They still are likely to hatch - even if it's not all of them.
The mother is okay to get off the eggs for about an hour a day. If she gets off 3 times daily at around an hour each, then the eggs have a low chance of hatching.
Keep us updated- I'm curious to see what happened.
Larger breeds can be slower to hatch and cold weather can slow down development.
Have you candled at any point? Were they all alive going into day 18? You could take them off one at a time to candle, just make sure to keep the egg's orientation intact so as not to confuse them if they are moving into hatch position.
Are you counting correctly? The day you give your hen the eggs is day 0. It does not count as day 1 until 24 hours after they were started.