Incubator help!

[hathomas96]

Hi there! I'm new here but I always get great info from here. Okay so I'm a nervous momma when it comes to my chicks. I have hatched twice but this is the first time I has done it in an incubator. I'm gunnu tell my story so you guys can answer with the right help. I had 20 eggs I thought were ferrile from my hen and I bought two fertile Easters from a friend. Well the 20 ended up not being fertile so I only have the two fertile Easters which, since I put them in they have grown and moved around in there she'll so good! When I candled them I could see everything. Last day I candled them was day 18 and they looked great! Yesterday was day 21 and there was no pips and no sounds or moving from both the eggs (which were doing great before) so I read on a blog to candle them really fast to make sure they are active. I could see them slowly jolting around and moving. Both of them. And now today there is still nothing going on. I'm concerned. It's day 22 and nothing yet. The temp and everything has been good too. I am just concerned about my baby's! They have been doing really good until now. When should I expect them to hatch!! Any suggestions?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are you counting the days right? It takes 21 days of development to get to the 21 days. That means day 1 is the day after you put them in. An easy way to check is the day of the week you put them in is the day of the week they should hatch. If you put them in on a Tuesday, they should hatch on a Tuesday.

Don’t get too hung up on the 21 day thing. 21 days is a general guideline, a target to shoot for. It’s not that unusual for eggs to hatch 2 or even 3 days before or after the 21 days. There are a lot of different things that can affect that; heredity, humidity, how and how long the eggs were stored before incubation started, and just basic differences in the eggs. A big one, and one that I suspect since it is your first time with that incubator, is the average incubation temperature. If the average temperature is a little warm, they can be early. Too cool and they can be late.

I finally got the temperature on my incubator tweaked so most of my hatches are on time. But occasionally I still get hatches two full days early, whether in my incubator or under a broody. I don’t know why but each incubation is different.

I don’t know anything you can do right now other than be patient. Good luck!

 

[davemonkey]

Are you counting the days right? It takes 21 days of development to get to the 21 days. That means day 1 is the day after you put them in. An easy way to check is the day of the week you put them in is the day of the week they should hatch. If you put them in on a Tuesday, they should hatch on a Tuesday.

Don’t get too hung up on the 21 day thing. 21 days is a general guideline, a target to shoot for. It’s not that unusual for eggs to hatch 2 or even 3 days before or after the 21 days. There are a lot of different things that can affect that; heredity, humidity, how and how long the eggs were stored before incubation started, and just basic differences in the eggs. A big one, and one that I suspect since it is your first time with that incubator, is the average incubation temperature. If the average temperature is a little warm, they can be early. Too cool and they can be late.

Great big +1 on this.