Fertile chicken eggs take around 21 days to hatch. Some breeds take a little less and some a little longer. 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.

Chicken eggs should hatch 21 days after they first start in an incubator. (Remember that your eggs have already been incubated for 14 days before you receive them!) Other bird species have different incubation times. For instance, duck eggs take 28 days to hatch; goose eggs take 30 days.

Hold the egg carefully between thumb and forefinger over a flashlight, candle or bare light bulb. Do this about three or four days after the start of incubation. A fertilized egg will appear to have small spiderweb type veins inside the shell when it is ‘candled’.

Usually, if temperature and humidity levels have been ideal, the hatchling will start to break through the shell 21 days after the eggs were first set. Bantams will take less long – on average, 18 days. However, this is very much a ‘rule of thumb’. Sometimes it takes longer and sometimes shorter times.

In the days before your eggs begin to hatch they may move around as the chick pips internally and repositions itself inside the egg shell. Eggs always wiggle at least a little as the chick shifts in side the shell.

Chicken farmers use candling to learn which of their chicken’s eggs are fertile and will hatch into baby chicks. The candling process works by illuminating the interior of an egg so you are able to see what is inside the shell.

A pipped egg is when the chick is beginning to hatch and a crack forms in the egg shell where the chick is breaking through the egg membrane and shell. Eggs Pipping. The chick pecks at the inside of the egg and the shell cracks and then small pieces of the outer shell fall off.

Usually – perhaps the bulk of the time, if the chick is left alone it will eventually make its way out of the egg all on its own… but it could take hours. Other times, a chick could be in distress, ill, or too exhausted to complete the hatching process, and simply give up and die.

day 18

When you turn the eggs, you’re gently rotating them 180 degrees side to side, not end to end. The purpose of turning is to keep the yolk, which will tend to float to the top, centered in the egg and to prevent the developing embryo – which rests on top of the yolk – from sticking to the membrane.

4-6 times daily

DO store eggs with the pointy end down at a 45 degree angle. While you’re collecting eggs to hatch, store them this way so that the yolk remains centered within the shell. Turning the stored eggs a few times a day side to side can also help your hatch rate, because that prevents the yolk from sticking to the shell.

You can move a broody hen and her nest of hatching eggs. It is sometimes necessary to move broody hens and if you pick the right time of day it can be done easily with little risk of the hen leaving the nest. You should always seperate broody hens from the rest of the flock if you can because they are disruptive.