Is Hatching Eggs A Good Idea?

The most fulfilling experience or the most heartwrenching failure. I have had my attempt at hatching eggs, and I am no pro. but after doing some research I felt confident to try. And try again I will, but I wanted to share my experience and how it worked out for me. I’ll be trying it again this year… but not yet. Here are some tips and things I learned to avoid during my incubation process.

Requirements for hatching eggs

The first things to consider are the requirements for hatching eggs. You need an incubator, and you need time to turn the eggs and candle them. You could also use a broody hen if that is available to you but you should always have an incubator on hand in case she doesn’t set the whole way through.

Rest Shipped eggs for at least 24 hours before putting them in the incubator. You want to make sure the eggs are at room temperature so inside your house before putting them into the incubator. Usually, at this time you would also put your eggs in a carton or sit them in the box you got them in with the pointy end facing down.

Have a place for chicks ready once they do hatch. This is called a brooder, and you will need a place for the chicks, a heat source, bedding, food, and water. I think the bonding experience of raising your own chicks is undeniably the best. See here for my article on baby chicks.

Getting hatching eggs

Eggs can be a maximum of 10 days old before the hatchability of those eggs is significantly impacted. That makes age to be a big impact if you will hatch anything.

Where are your eggs coming from? If they are coming from someone local this is going to be your biggest blessing that will help you successfully hatch eggs. Less travel the better. Any eggs shipped in the mail will have a lower hatch rate. Expect a maximum of 50% hatch from shipped eggs. I will elaborate on issues with shipped eggs. You should candle the eggs. Turn them Gently and check the bubble that should not move at the bigger end of the egg. If the little air pocket moves, that’s an issue.

What time of year are you trying to hatch eggs? If it’s in the middle of winter or there is snow on the ground where they are coming from, good luck you might want to pray or try the lotto. I think personally you may have a better chance at hatching them if you get them from someone local and you know they got them shortly after they were laid. If there is a chance those eggs froze and didn’t crack there’s a lower chance of hatching those eggs.

Make sure you have a hygrometer/thermometer for the inside of your incubator. It can only help you, in the long run, to make sure your incubator is doing its job. Keep this visible inside of the incubator and check these at least daily to make sure you are keeping your temps and humidity levels correct.

I also recommend getting hatching eggs that you aren’t spending an arm and a leg for on your first try. If this is your first time trying to hatch eggs, I would try to get some from a local source. Check Craigslist, and community posts, or you can reach out to local egg farms near you through Facebook to see if they offer eggs for hatching.

Check for Saddle Eggs

If you get an egg that’s “Saddled” It looks like the image to your left. These have a reduced chance to hatch because the amount of room for the chick to develop has been limited. This can also mean that the air sac is disturbed and can jiggle.

Be careful with these eggs, if the sac shifts or moves when you turn it. This is a very bad sign for the egg. Mark this so you have an ID for the eggs that have this and watch them carefully. If they do not set they are more likely to fail. I treated all these eggs like they were as fragile as bubbles.

Starting the incubation

So If you have debated your chances of hatching eggs and come to the conclusion you are good to go and give it a try. Know what you are looking for. I watched tons of videos and felt confident knowing how to hatch eggs and here we are.

Use the manual, you need to know how to check and reset and adjust your incubator. This is important because some parts may need to be adjusted or removed before hatch day.

Mark your eggs. X and O on opposite sides if you do not have an incubator that auto-turns your eggs. Also, make an outline every time you candle your eggs to keep up with the progression of the development and air in the eggs. Any time you have a suspicious egg, mark it so you know to check it earlier rather than later and compare it with your good eggs.

Ok, Eggs in the incubator, now what?

Be careful with your eggs. You don’t want to overhandle your eggs. You can check them every day, Turn them over at least 3 times a day if needed by hand. However, I would suggest candling them once a week. If you have nothing after 2 weeks, that’s a good indicator to remove it. You DO NOT want a bad egg exploding all over your good eggs. This is why we want to check these at least once a week.

Also, be aware It will be more difficult to candle darker eggs. and Lighter eggs will be easier to see the inside. This is pretty cool to follow along with. You can see development in eggs after the first week.

Check for MOVEMENT after day 14 and they start to become darker. I never saw actual movement in any of my eggs. This was probably my sign. I should have known something was off. I still saw the dark spots where a chick was developing in the eggs… so I thought everything was OK. If the eggs are clear and have no development at this stage, you should definitely toss them. They were never developed and they can explode in your incubator. This can contaminate the good eggs remaining in your incubator with bad bacteria.

When do they Hatch?

Now is the waiting game until you hear pipping, or day 18. On day 18 Remove the egg turner if you have an automatic one, or turn it off. This will protect the eggs. and DO NOT open your incubator after this point. There is a danger of “Shrink wrapping” your chicks if you open the incubator during the hatch. It is also recommended to have your humidity up at this time as well.

Day 21 is the day they should be hatching… don’t hear Pipping? This is ok, sometimes they take longer, and sometimes they hatch sooner. If you are hatching Bantam Eggs, They can hatch earlier. I guess because they are smaller they have less to develop so they hatch quicker. But If you have eggs that have been in the incubator for over 28 days it’s time to remove the eggs. The hatch is more than likely not going to happen at this point.

What happened to my first hatch?

My first hatch ended without a single chick in the brooder. I ended up buying some chickens from Tractor Supply, and a local breeder near me. Here is why…

I honestly believe when I tried hatching eggs the first time, I chose a poor time. I tried to jump the gun and hatch them in January… Which means the eggs were exposed to harsh environmental conditions. I do not recommend trying to hatch shipped eggs from the middle of winter. That’s one against me but I have more.

I also think that when I ordered my eggs I hadn’t done the best research to get any to hatch. From just the transport alone almost every egg I received was “Saddled”. I had no idea how bad the hatch rates were for shipped eggs either. I was hoping for 50% not realizing more variables were at play.

All of my eggs had a very low chance of hatching because of the things I didn’t know at the time. I ordered them from across the country, through an airport that was notorious for bad handling on eggs, and even though none were cracked and the seller had done a great job packaging them… They might have even been X-rayed, and who knows how they were handled by individuals along the way. I also only put 6 eggs in a 12-egg incubator. I don’t think the incubator was keeping the eggs at the correct temperature. One of the eggs had made it to full development… and I’m not sure why it didn’t hatch.

My humidity was good, and I thought the temperature was perfect. I’ve learned not to trust the temps that you get from the incubators since having this experience and recommend hygrometers. Because of the things I learned with my first attempt at hatching eggs, I will be trying to hatch some new ones later this year. I will be waiting until April to start hatching ordered eggs and some from my current chickens. That way they hatch around the time my order of chicks should arrive, and I can get a good idea as to what is going on with hatch rates.

Good luck with your Hatch!

I truly believe you should never let anything stop you from your goals. (As long as they are healthy goals.) Don’t let it get you down if you fail. Every failure is an opportunity to learn. I take my failure as an opportunity to grow and try again. The consequences of failure can be heartwrenching. In this case, it was upsetting for me when nothing came out of my hatch. But I can take this experience and share it and hope it helps someone to avoid the mistakes I made along the way.