My very first incubated eggs were 12 days old, and 6 out of 7 hatched. BUT, and it's a big but, they were from my own chickens.
I lost all my broodies and my roos to a fox, so I grabbed the last 7 eggs that i knew to be fertile, and looked around for someone with a broody. Didn't find one, so i put in a rush order for an incubator...all this time, the eggs were sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter, it was summer, so probably mid-70s, i didn't know they needed to be turned, didn't really know anything about incubating, i'd always let the girls do it, then raised the peeps myself, just for space and safety reasons.
The only one that didn't hatch didn't develop at all, and likely wasn't fertile. I helped a couple out, who probably got stuck cause i kept opening the darned incubator, but they were all fine.
Since then I've incubated shipped eggs twice, and was lucky to get 1/3 of them to hatch.
I lost all my broodies and my roos to a fox, so I grabbed the last 7 eggs that i knew to be fertile, and looked around for someone with a broody. Didn't find one, so i put in a rush order for an incubator...all this time, the eggs were sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter, it was summer, so probably mid-70s, i didn't know they needed to be turned, didn't really know anything about incubating, i'd always let the girls do it, then raised the peeps myself, just for space and safety reasons.
The only one that didn't hatch didn't develop at all, and likely wasn't fertile. I helped a couple out, who probably got stuck cause i kept opening the darned incubator, but they were all fine.
Since then I've incubated shipped eggs twice, and was lucky to get 1/3 of them to hatch.