question regarding eggs.

[ujwal]

Hi experts,

Im curious to know how long can the eggs be kept outside before placing them into the incubator or letting a broody hen to incubate them.Does it affect the hatch rate?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Older eggs will hatch but for best outcome it's said 10 days is your age limit. Increasingly poorer hatching success after that. This spring we collected eggs for 14 days as there was only two hens we wanted chicks from. Had 70% hatch.

If you have a cooler area to store them like a basement that's good, we kept ours right in the dinning room (65 F) fat end up in egg cartons to make turning them easy. Have carton tilted on a board one direction then tilt in opposite direction to turn. We turned twice a day, morning and at bedtime.

 

[neck1950]

it will take 23to25 days for a good hatch..99degrees

 

[drowe005]

• What kind of eggs in specific are you talking about because that will make a difference? My chukar eggs keep up to 28 days, but I usually only wait about 23 days at most before placing them in the incubator and still have a 90% + hatch rate. I know most other eggs are best if placed in the incubator in under 10 days, but the sooner the better.

 

[destinduck]

Wow! I had no idea chukar eggs could be stored that long with such a huge hatch rate!!! I try to do the 10 day pickup. Plus temps do effect this of course.

 

[ujwal]

First of all thank you guys for your comments.

• What kind of eggs in specific are you talking about because that will make a difference? My chukar eggs keep up to 28 days, but I usually only wait about 23 days at most before placing them in the incubator and still have a 90% + hatch rate. I know most other eggs are best if placed in the incubator in under 10 days, but the sooner the better.

It was a clutch of Indian Red Jungle Fowl eggs that I had and it was collected from the wild.Now I have 5days old 4 chicks.They were successfully hatched by my broody hen.5 out of 6 eggs hatched and 1 chick died 3days after the hatch.

 

[destinduck]

Good deal. Id say thats a good hatchout. Enjoy the new Peeps.