When are pullet's new eggs viable? Broody hen & choosing eggs to hatch.

[ronnijean]

Hi all - I've got a broody hen and am deciding whether or not to let her hatch some eggs. I've got a mixed breed flock, so I want to hatch for egg color combos if possible.

Our roo is an Ameracana, so fun color possibilities there. One of our pullets, a Black Copper Maran, just starting laying her beautiful dark brown eggs last week. Ideally, I'd LOVE to hatch some of her eggs out and try to get an olive egger out of the bunch...however, I'm thinking it's probably too early for her eggs to produce healthy chicks, right?

Should I try to hatch some out now w/our broody, or is that a bad idea?

TIA for any advice!

 

[Cyprus]

They should be viable. My pullet had fertile eggs by her second day of lay.

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

My experience with trying to hatch pullet eggs was heartbreaking. I had 3-4 from my red sexlinks. They all developed through lockdown and they all ended up DIS. When I went to eggtopsy them I had a hard time cracking the eggs open. Basically the eggs were small and extremely hard shelled. There was no way any chicks, especially small ones, would have been able to make it out. I have not tried pullet eggs again. Personal I'd give them at least a month of laying. Then check shell thickness and size before deciding to hatch or not.

Whatever you decide I hope your experience is better than mine was.

 

[ronnijean]

They should be viable. My pullet had fertile eggs by her second day of lay.

Cyprus - did you try hatching any of the eggs? Or just noticed that they were fertile upon cracking? As UThobbyfarmer mentioned, I'm also wondering if any chicks would even be able to hatch from new pullet eggs if I let them incubate.

Hmm. I'm half-considering sticking a couple under our broody hen to experiment, half-thinking that maybe it's better just to wait around until someone else eventually goes broody again, whenever that may be. Hmm....

 

[BGcoop]

I vote go for it. Yes it’ll be sad if they don’t make it, but you won’t know if you don’t try.

 

[Cyprus]

Cyprus - did you try hatching any of the eggs? Or just noticed that they were fertile upon cracking? As UThobbyfarmer mentioned, I'm also wondering if any chicks would even be able to hatch from new pullet eggs if I let them incubate.

Hmm. I'm half-considering sticking a couple under our broody hen to experiment, half-thinking that maybe it's better just to wait around until someone else eventually goes broody again, whenever that may be. Hmm....

Oh yeah, I incubated them and they hatched just fine! 100% hatch rate.

 

[sourland]

As long as the eggs are not extremely small you should do fine.

 

[ronnijean]

Thanks all! I ended up putting two BCM pullet eggs under my broody along with 3 other hens eggs. The eggs were kind of small still; it's only been a few days since she started laying. I'm honestly not expecting them to work out, but I guess we'll see what happens either way.

 

[ronnijean]

Just wanted to update this thread, because updates are always nice.

My broody hatched her eggs yesterday! She was sitting on 4. Roo was an Ameracana. 1 egg from barred rock, 1 from white leghorn, 2 from my newly laying maran pullet.

3 hatched, 1 was a dud (I cracked open today & there was no development at all) - the barred rock, the leghorn, and one of the maran pullets!! I think the pullet eggs were from day 3&4, or 4&5 of first laying (I can't remember exactly), so they were pretty small and I wasn't sure if they'd hatch at all. So it was so exciting that one hatched!

The maran chick is pretty small right now, but I expected that. Here's hoping he/she continues growing and remains healthy and strong! Here's some pics. The one with all three chicks is from this morning. The other two pics are from yesterday when he maran chick wasn't totally fluffed out yet but you can see the size comparison to the other chicks better (as well as a size comparison of the dud maran egg still in the bedding).