Is it possible? Yes, absolutely. Many of us have done it. Will you be as successful with little pullet eggs as you would be if you wait? Maybe, maybe not. There are things that can go wrong, but remember there is often a big difference in what can happen versus what will happen.
A lot of things have to be right in an egg for it to hatch. All the bits and parts need to be there and in the right proportion. It’s not unusual for a pullet to take a while to straighten out her laying factory. That’s where all those posts about a pullet’s weird first eggs come from, those no-yolk, double yolk, small, large, soft, shell-less, and all that.
It’s not unusual for a pullet to lay a really hard egg. The shell gland makes enough shell material for a regular sized egg and it gets laid on really thick on those tiny pullet eggs. I have one right now that the shell is fine but the membrane under the shell it really tough. A chick might have trouble poking a hole in that membrane before it got to the shell.
If the egg yolk is too large for the size of egg the chick may develop so big it can’t move inside the egg to hatch. If it is too small, the chick will likely be weak and not do well, maybe not be strong enough to hatch or may die shortly after.
With all I’ve said about what can go wrong, I still do it if the egg the pullet is laying looks reasonably well proportioned and nothing stands out about it as presenting a specific threat. Then I might reconsider. I’ve done it and been pretty successful, though I usually wait two or three weeks after the pullet starts before I start to collect eggs for hatching. Don’t be totally shocked if your hatch rate isn’t perfect or if a chick has trouble after it hatches, but if it makes it past the first 24 hours, it should do well. I’m sure there are plenty of people that have done it and had perfect success, and I hope you are one of them, but your odds of perfection are a bit lower with pullet eggs.
I’ll be putting some pullet eggs in the incubator at the end of this month, but they will have been laying for a few weeks by the time I start collecting.
Will the smaller chicks that hatch reach “normal” size? Good question. They have the same genetics so they have the same potential and their offspring should have the same potential. But I’ve noticed a tendency for mine to always be a bit smaller than their regular siblings if they are fed the same. I raise mine mainly for meat so it’s hard for me to say how productive one is as an adult. Mine generally don’t make it that far but I’d expect them to be as productive. Can’t say for sure though.
they seemed fine, their eggs at the time only weighed about 1.6-1.8 ounces, now they're laying 2.0oz eggs....& I hatched a Jersey giant out of a 1.3oz egg (so it was a bantam size egg from 9 month old parents who had just started laying), she is now 4 months old & she's normal size same as my australorps, so she might be on the small side right now, but I don't think it eventually affects their growth
