How young is too young for a hens egg?

[TinyRaptorDodos]

I have a few new layers and my young rooster is being an over achiever (still scared of two of my hens but for such a little breed he’s good..) and I was thinking about doing a winter hatch. How young is too young to hatch a hens eggs?

 

[NatJ]

Even the first tiny eggs often can hatch, but you generally get better results if you wait until the pullets are laying normal sized eggs, maybe a month or so after they start laying.

By better results, I mean chicks that are bigger & healthier, and more chicks that hatch successfully.

 

[TinyRaptorDodos]

Even the first tiny eggs often can hatch, but you generally get better results if you wait until the pullets are laying normal sized eggs, maybe a month or so after they start laying.

By better results, I mean chicks that are bigger & healthier, and more chicks that hatch successfully.

I thought so, road runner has definitely been laying over a month (when I found her eggs there were twelve piled up and she’s been laying every day since) but crow just started a couple weeks ago.
Thought it would be very awkward to hatch chicks from those tiny tiny eggs, road runners eggs are almost normal sized and they just started darkening from almost white to normal brown

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree, wait a month. It's not just the size, though that is important. When a pullet first starts to lay she can fail to lay a perfect egg, and they need to be pretty close to perfect to hatch a healthy chick. You read about a pullet just starting to lay producing shell-less, thin-shelled, or really thick-shelled eggs. They might be no-yolk, double-yolked, or just plain weird. There may be things internal to the structure of the egg you don't notice. To me it is surprising how many do start out with close to perfect eggs. By a month the size has generally increased and they've usually worked out the glitches.

 

[TinyRaptorDodos]

I agree, wait a month. It's not just the size, though that is important. When a pullet first starts to lay she can fail to lay a perfect egg, and they need to be pretty close to perfect to hatch a healthy chick. You read about a pullet just starting to lay producing shell-less, thin-shelled, or really thick-shelled eggs. They might be no-yolk, double-yolked, or just plain weird. There may be things internal to the structure of the egg you don't notice. To me it is surprising how many do start out with close to perfect eggs. By a month the size has generally increased and they've usually worked out the glitches.

I didn’t know that, I’ve had so many different hens raised from pullets and only ever had the double yolked issue with one of my Easter eggers egg, thank you for telling me that

 

[Sussex19]

I hatched a pullet egg last year, and she is a big bossy hen now. However, when I tried it this year, they seem to be too small, and died soon after hatching, so I won't be doing that again. I think as soon the eggs are a good size, then you're good to go.