In my mind i would think that incubator eggs should take less because they are heated 24/7 and at a constant tempature , but with a hen, the hen gets off the nest to eat, so the eggs would cool a little, and at night the temp would drop. Can someone explain, cuz my brain will not grasp the consept that hen incubated eggs take LESS time
My hens & incubator take the same amount of time to hatch eggs. If your incubator hatches faster, it may be set a degree or 2 too high.
I think that the thermostats may not be quite so accurate on incubators at times. If not that, the way momma hen looks after them is different from the way an inanimate object does. I noticed my broody hen (in the dog's bed and visible from the kitchen window) with her head under her belly/breast carefully arranging and re-arranging the eggs until she had them in what she considered to be an optimal position. The last hen who I had broody (different hen) had her eggs arranged in a perfect keel shape under her breast all with the pointy end arranged inwards. The broody hen instinctively know the absolute best way to handle her eggs. An incubator only tries to mimic her actions. Maybe their is some physical explanation that a scientist can offer for the fact that eggs under a broody seem to hatch better and sooner, but I've outlined my theory, Sandie
Agree with Surehatch. They take the same time. If you think your hens take less time to hatch eggs, it's because you've not counted the days right- incubation may have begun before you started counting- or because your incubator's thermostat/thermometer are off... or because sometimes chicks hatch early or late for no real good reason other than they were ready or not ready to come out yet.
Every time I have had hens hatch eggs, they have done it in 19 days (I marked the date when I set them). With my incubator, it takes 21 days, never less. All I can say is, Momma knows best!
Generally, 21 days is 21 days. Iknow, I know--temp. differences and fluctuations. Meant to be tongue in cheek.
Quote:No, i'm with the OP. I have had more broody hatches than incubator hatches, and i have only had one of those broody hatches ever go to 21 days. When that happened, i thought something was wrong. This last time, i set eggs under my broody and in my incubator at the same time. And as always, hers all hatched before mine. In fact, All of hers were out a full day before my first one hatched. I will say that i have always attributed this to my inability to keep the incubator at the same warm temperature. It tends to be a little cool, and i'm fine with that. I have good healthy hatches, so a couple of extra days is great. They usually start pipping on day 21, sometimes day 20, so they're not really taking extra days; i just have a difficulty not thinking they're late on day 21.
