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Incubation Duration

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John:

--- Quote ---I must be reading the calendar wrong
--- End quote ---

I don\'t think so.
I set eggs on Sunday evenings around 6pm and expect them to hatch 21 days later on a Sunday.  Some will start hatching a day or more early and some may be up to a day late.  I adjust the thermostats so that the chicks hatch as close to 21 days as possible and not to the thermometer readings.  Those that hatch a day early are generally much better survivors than any that hatch a day late.  The eggs from some breeding pens will hatch much sooner or later than others.
Day old chicks are supposed to be less than 24 hours old when you put them in the mail.  When I mail them on Monday afternoons I say they where hatched at 6pm the day before (Sunday).  Remember we are dealing with the government here and they require the date and time of hatch to be written on the box.  You and I know that all 25 chicks didn\'t hatch at the same time, but I know that theoretically that is the time they should of hatched based on the date and time I sat the eggs.  

Guest:
I run my incubator at an average of 99.5 (my digital thermometers only display in full degrees and alternate from 99 to 100).  The incubator keeps around 55% humidity.

I set each hatch at 10 am each Saturday morning.  On the 18th day (Wed morning), I move the setting from my incubator over to my hatcher which I run at the same temp (99.5) with around 65% humidity.  During the move, I candle the eggs and toss the clear ones.

For three hatches in a row now this year, I see two to three eggs with the first pip marks on the 20th day that morning.  By that evening (20.5 days), 50% of the setting has already hatched.  I pull those chicks and put them in one of my brooders, removing the empty shells to clean up a bit.  

By next morning (Saturday at the 21 day mark), another 40-45% of the setting has hatched, leaving only a few straggler eggs.  These get pulled and moved to the brooder like before, with cleanup of emptys.

The remaining eggs I leave in the hatcher for the rest of Saturday and Sunday.  Any that are going to hatch have done so by Sunday morning (day 22).  Sunday evening, I candle the remaining eggs and decide then whether to cook them for another night or not (I\'m an optimist...grin).  

On Monday, I shutdown the hatcher, cleanup all the debris, wash it all down, disinfect, etc. and let it dry until Wed to start the process over again.

This seems to be working extremely well.  

John:
Sounds like you are doing things right.
I do wait a little longer before moving eggs from the incubators to the hatchers though.  Generally I do it on the 19th day and sometimes have waited until an egg or two start to pip before moving them.

It seems according to one study, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12762394&dopt=Abstract, that eggs that are stored for shorter periods hatch sooner than those that are stored longer before incubation.

John:
Here is a site, http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/poultry/g08353.htm that has a couple interesting bits of info.

--- Quote ---The normal incubation time of most chickens is 21 days to 21 days, 6 hours. Table 3 shows normal incubation times for other birds. Incubation time may vary according to temperature of weather and incubator, size of egg, fertility of egg and vigor of the embryo, and a host of other factors.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---A one-half-degree change in average incubation temperature will move the average hatch time by about 5.4 hours.
--- End quote ---

bantamhill:
 :o
It is apparent to me that I have been hatching chicks on day 20 for about 20 hatching seasons! I have never counted hours before and it appears that I am going to have to admit that I was incorrect in my counting and eat some proverbial \"crow\"! I normally set on Sunday and expect the chicks to hatch on Saturday . . .

Seriously, I think that the chicks that hatch earlier are more vigourous and do better in the long run.

Michael :D

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