15 days

26-28 days

10-12 eggs

Hens will only visit the nesting site long enough to deposit her egg for the day. The rest of her time will be spent elsewhere feeding and roosting. At the end of the laying period, incubation starts. During this time, the hen puts herself in danger to stay on the nest day and night for about 28 days.

The problem is usually caused by either 1) poor ventilation or 2) improper humidity. Another reason for mortality during hatching is improper humidity adjustment. The deaths can be produced from too much humidity during the entire incubation period or from too little humidity during the hatching period.

Bird eggs can live up to seven days without necessary warmth. It’s recommended for the eggs to stay at a consistent temperature of 16-17 Celsius for survival. If you are going to be keeping the bird eggs in an incubator, it’s quite easy to manage warmth. You can tweak the settings and ensure the eggs hatch as intended.

Eggs which have been subjected to freezing conditions (in the coop or in shipping) will have suffered damage to their internal structures and are highly unlikely to hatch. Incubation during this time of year due to the temperatures will have to occur indoors with a stable temperature.

So much depends on the temperature where they eggs are. My broody hatched in May, which is still cool here, and she would stay off the nest for up to 45 minutes at a time.

It should have a smooth, unmarked shell if it is still alive. Shine a bright flashlight through the egg in a dark room, and look closely at the inside. If the egg is alive you will see veins running through it. The process of removing dead or rotten eggs during incubation that uses this method is candling.

Collect two or three times in the morning and one or two times in the afternoon. Slightly soiled eggs can be used for hatching purposes without causing hatching problems, but dirty eggs should not be saved. Do not wash dirty eggs.

Fertile chicken eggs take around 21 days to hatch. If the egg has not hatched after 25 days, it should be removed from the broody hen or incubator. Eggs need constant heat during the full incubation period for the embryo to develop into a chick. This heat is provided either by a broody hen or incubator.

day 18

An egg is a closed system. Due to evaporation of the liquid in the egg due the permeable shell, the egg will get lighter as you incubate it. It has to lose a certain percent of it’s weight to hatch. There is no way it can get heavier normally…

Seeing an egg moving is also an indication that everything is going well and the chick is developing. In my experience, some eggs will start to move, which is more of a rocking motion, around 4-5 days before hatching. When they start to pip the egg you’ll obviously see some kind of movement.

The chick breathes air for the first time, and you may hear the chick peeping inside the egg. This is called pipping.

It may wiggle or shake. The embryo should be stimulated to move by the bright flashlight. Remove any eggs that are white, with no veins or movement. If the egg does not have any distinct veins and it is white when you shine the light on it, it is likely dead.

If not turned for long periods the yolk will eventually touch the inner shell membranes. When the embryo touches the shell membranes, it will stick to the shell and die. Regularly turning the egg will prevent this, and ensure healthy embryo development.

TIL that a hen turns her egg 50 times per each day to keep the yolk from sticking to the side.

Assuming they are chicken eggs, 21 days is the average but depending on the temperature in an incubator or even with a brooding hen it can take 22 days. After that I would candle the eggs to see if they are viable.

12 eggs

To hatch eggs successfully without a proper incubator, you need to be able to do the following:

1. Keep the eggs consistently at 37.5 Celsius / 99.5 F.
2. Turn the eggs 3 or 5 times per day.
3. Keep the humidity at 45% from days 1-18 and 60-70% days 19-22.

The best practice is to candle and check your eggs a few times in the 21-day process of incubation. If you find Yolkers or Quitters immediately remove those eggs, so they don’t rot or even worse, burst inside your incubator!

Day 19. There are no further candling photographs after this point because the eggs need to be left alone so the chicks can properly position themselves for hatching. They will remain untouched in the incubator until the chicks are hatched and dried.

And candling does not harm your eggs. Just as the mother would naturally leave the nest for a short time each day, you can safely take your incubating eggs out of the incubator for the few times you will be candling them. During incubation the air sac size should increase as moisture evaporates from the egg.

Days 4 and 5. From about day 4 or 5 in a properly developing egg you’ll start to see tiny spider like markings appearing in the yolk area when you candle your eggs. These are easiest to see in white or light-coloured eggs. The ‘spider legs’ you can see are the embryo’s blood vessels.

* You can candle your eggs every day if you’d like, after day 3 you should see something. * Be sure your hands are clean and dry. Oil from your fingers can clog the pores in the egg shell and keep the embryo from getting the oxygen it needs. * At about 8 days, you can see the peep wiggling and kicking in his egg.

The red blood ring – if you’re candling the eggs and detect a red ring of blood around the embryo, unfortunately the embryo has deceased and should be removed immediately from the incubator. Oozing substance – sometimes bad eggs will begin to ooze a honey/light brown coloured substance.

Day 20 : Let pipping begin! The egg hasn’t been candled now for three days in order to allow the chick move into the proper position for hatching, so the first outward sign we see will be a tiny crack on the surface of the eggshell. This can happen earlier for bantam eggs, and later for large breeds.