Well its day 20...................... WAIT WHAT WAS THAT?

[ilovemydog]

Well i have a black auestralorp that is on day 20 nothing yet..i thought i saw an egg rock on day 18 and today i heard something under her but nothing was there.It is my first time with a broody and hatching chicks myself. When should i notice something different? Like will the momma act different when she knows a chick is under her

? Also the it is a bantam rooster over a few standard hens. Is this okay for chicks? Like because its a big egg will they have enough strength to get out of the egg since i heard they will probablyy be bantams? I picked some of her eggs up yesterday and some felt heavy and only 1 felt like nothing was in it. I candled at day 8 and thought i saw some good progress(again its my first time) but did i mess anything up by candling them???

Hopefully pics of chicks when the hatch..Been praying that i will get at least 1

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
You know, eggs actually LOSE weight as the embryo grows bigger. This is due to evaporation of moisture through the pores of the shell. So eggs that are developing properly would by now be a bit lighter than eggs that weren't doing anything. But unless you know the starting weight of each egg, you can't tell much by judging their weight at this point. They probably all weighed slightly different amounts to start with, so you'd expect them to weigh slightly different amounts now anyway, even if they were all developing...

As long as you handled the eggs gently and your hands were clean, you won't have messed anything up by candling them, so don't worry too much about that. Broody hens can often take a bit longer than the normal 21 days, due to the eggs cooling down each time they get off the nest for anything. When I hatch in an incubator, I always have chicks on day 21, or 22 at the latest. But the one time I had a broody hen, she took 26 days to hatch her chicks! So don't be too quick to panic if nothing's happened by tomorrow.

A bantam rooster over standard hens will probably turn out birds that are somewhere in between the two sizes. But as for the chicks being able to hatch I don't think you need to worry. Very large chicks often have trouble hatching due to simply being unable to turn around inside the shell, but small chicks should be able to pop out easily.

Once they hatch, unless you lift the hen up to look you might not notice anything different for a day or two. New chicks tend to just hide and sleep for most of the time the first couple of days. You might hear cheeping though, or you might see the broken eggshells lying beside the nest after the hen has kicked them out from under her. And if you DO lift her up for a look, be very careful - she might have the chicks tucked up tight under her wings and you don't want to lift her too high in case she drops them! Once they're a couple of days old, you'll see thir little heads poking out through her feathers, which is always a very cute sight.

Good luck with your eggs!

 

[MamaMarcy]

I recently hatched two brred rock hen/bantam roo crosses. My girls eggs aren't super huge, but big compared to bantams. Anyhow the chicks made it out just fine. So far they are leaning toward being averged sized vs banatam sized and take after their mama more than their papa. I would just trust nature.

I will saya...they hatched out and had fille dup the eggs just fine, of not too much. I was worried one may have zipping issues cause he was filling that egg up so much.

 

[ilovemydog]

Thanks still havnt seen anything....THE WAIT IS GONNA KILLLL MEEE

Hurry and hatchh!!!!!!!!!!