When to incubate?

[horror_trashcan]

My parents gifted me an 'Square Grid M12' Incubator and I'm wondering when is the soonest I can hatch eggs from newly laying hens. My chicks are quite a few months away from laying so I will probably end up incubating ordered eggs before then but when after they start can I begin incubating them? I have a rooster and I understand it only takes a day but do the hens need to get used to laying first before the eggs are viable? I'm completely new to the incubating world but very excited! I am hoping to use it to hatch birds that would be too expensive to buy as chicks.
And if anyone has used this incubator before how is it? It's labeled WYD2ANG but the instruction manual says 'Square Grid M12'.

 

[FenrisMau]

My parents gifted me an 'Square Grid M12' Incubator and I'm wondering when is the soonest I can hatch eggs from newly laying hens. My chicks are quite a few months away from laying so I will probably end up incubating ordered eggs before then but when after they start can I begin incubating them? I have a rooster and I understand it only takes a day but do the hens need to get used to laying first before the eggs are viable? I'm completely new to the incubating world but very excited! I am hoping to use it to hatch birds that would be too expensive to buy as chicks.
And if anyone has used this incubator before how is it? It's labeled WYD2ANG but the instruction manual says 'Square Grid M12'.

The first eggs tend to me misshapen or messed up in one way or another, I've heard it's not recommended to lay their first, or also when it's cold out, as when the babies are let outside you want it to be warm. Probably in spring time will be a good time to hatch them.

I'm not familiar with your incubator, but if it has auto-turning, and able to monitor both temperature AND humidity, you're good.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a rooster and I understand it only takes a day

Let's look at it this way. An egg takes on average 25 hours to make its way through the hen's internal egg making factory. It can only be fertilized during the first few minutes of that journey. Any egg laid that day cannot be fertilized by that mating. An egg laid the following day might or might not, depending on timing. I don't count on it. An egg laid the next day should be fertile.

A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in his flock every day but he doesn't have to. The hen stores the sperm in a special "container" near where the egg starts its journey. That sperm can stay viable for as long as three weeks but that is stretching it. I'd count on two weeks.

but do the hens need to get used to laying first before the eggs are viable?

When they start to lay, pullets can have issues putting an egg together correctly. Different things can go wrong: soft shelled, no shell, double yolked, no yolk, no whites, or something just plain weird. It can take a few days for the pullet to straighten this out.

Most do actually get it right from the start but there is another problem. The first eggs are typically really small. There is not enough nutrients in them for the chick to grow to a normal size. There is also not enough room in there for it to grow very big. I'm not talking about the difference in size of a bantam egg versus a full sized hen egg. I'm talking about the small egg compared to the size that hen will eventually lay.

I've hatched some first-time pullet eggs. The hatch rate might even be decent but it is often not as good as if you used larger eggs. Most chicks that hatch live and thrive, but if I have a chick die after hatch it is more likely to have come from a small egg.

I've found if I wait until the pullet has been laying at least a month these problems pretty much go away.

And if anyone has used this incubator before how is it? It's labeled WYD2ANG but the instruction manual says 'Square Grid M12'.

I'm not familiar with that specific incubator but a lot of chicks have been hatched in similar designs.

Good luck!

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi,

I wouldn't incubate a pullet's eggs their first week of laying, but perhaps I would the second week. Others wait a month. The reasoning is their first eggs may not have been created perfectly like an older one that's been laying, and it could cause dead embryos or handicapped if they hatch. I know there's someone in this forum who says they hatch theirs right off the bat and never had an issue though. I just prefer to eat that first week or two of eggs myself, then start saving them to incubate.

Here is an excellent article about incubation.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-beginners-guide-to-incubation.73350/