The Poultry Keeper

tammy68 · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 7:48 am Post subject: Eggs hatching and timing

The 6th one id 6 Lavenday Araucanas hatched last night so that means 6/6 100%. I'm thrilled. I had them in the incubator with another 6 Barnevelder eggs (3 of those have hatched yesterday so still 3 to go if I am lucky again) and a dozen Plymouth Rock Bantam eggs and so far only one of those has hatched and I think that one was because the egg got chipped by a clumsy chick bashing the eggs together as it stumbled about in the incubator! It got chipped on the day 20 when the 1st 3 Araucanas hatched and then a bit more yesterday. It was breathing and moving and appeared to be trying to get out so I left it overnight and found it hadn't changed any by this morning. I chipped a little of the shell away myself and left it. An hour later it was out and walking about with no problems. I was very relieved as I though maybe it wasn't quite ready but didn't want to leave it in case it died struggling to get out as it appeared to have been trying for over 2 days. No sign of any pipping though in the other 11 PR eggs though. Could it be that the Plymouth Rock shells are tougher? It either didn't hatch in the normal way I am now used to by making a series of chips around the rounded end of the shell as the first hole was nearer to the pointed end Confused

I.m not sure what to do about the other eggs. How will I know if they are trying to get out but cant break the shell?

Itsybitsy · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 1443 Location: Leicestershire

You can hear them inside if they are close enough to hatching - put an egg to your ear and cheep at it, if it's that far advanced it will cheep back. You can usually get a response up to 48hrs before hatching. . . .not always though.

Itsybitsy