How long to chicken eggs take to hatch

Is it your first hatching season? While hatching eggs might seem like a simple process that takes care of itself, there are a few quirks that you will want to keep in mind. One of the most important starting points is asking the question: what is the typical incubation period for a chicken egg?

So How Long Do Chickens Take to Hatch?

The short answer is: under normal conditions, and given proper care, chicken eggs will naturally take 21 days to hatch. While this is the average, this can sometimes vary slightly, with some taking just a little over or under 21 days. This can depend on a number of factors, including minor temperature changes if using incubation and the health and age of the laying hen. 

Ways to Hatch Chicken Eggs

There are a variety of ways to hatch eggs and two of the more common options are:

Brooding

The most common and natural way of hatching a chicken egg is called brooding. This simply involves letting the mother hen sit on the eggs in the nest until they hatch. Mother hens will naturally and instinctively care for her chicks after. If for any reason the hen doesn’t have the instinct to hatch, broody hens may be used. Through the brooding method, a hen can hatch around 10-12 eggs at a time. 

If you don't have a broody hen, brooders can be used as a substitute. A brooder generates heat that's similar to the levels of a mother hen to simulate and encourage the natural hatching process.

Incubation

If your mother hen is not feeling motherly or you don’t have a broody hen or a brooder, an incubator may be used. An incubator keeps the eggs warm until they are ready to hatch. 

While there are a lot of ways you can improvise this method, using a proper incubator will increase your chances of hatching most if not all of the eggs. There are many types of incubator available, talk to an expert to find the best one for your needs. 

Will All of The Eggs Hatch?

It is important to know that despite following the right methods and providing the right care, only fertilised eggs will hatch into chicks. There are also other factors to consider if you're trying to increase your hatch rate. Some of those include:

• Providing good nutrition for the parents
• Ensuring controlled and consistent temperatures if using an incubator
• Keeping the eggs and surrounding areas clean

Understanding the conditions that are needed will increase the chances of fertilised eggs being hatched into healthy chicks.

Seeing a chicken egg crack is a fantastic experience. But do you know, exactly, when a chick should come out of its shell once it is cracked? I will guide you through all the procedures you need to know “from pip to chick” to increase your success rate and get healthy chicks.

As a general rule, it takes 5 to 7 hours for a chick to entirely hatch after the first crack or pip appears on the egg. In some cases, it can take up to 24 hours, and it’s concerning when eggs remain unhatched for 40-60 hours after cracking, as chick health will greatly suffer.

A healthy hatch is a must for getting high-quality chicks, so keep reading further to know more about egg hatching and provide your poultry business a valuable boost.

How Long After An Egg Has Pipped Should It Hatch?

A pipped egg should hatch in about 24 hours. But normally, they hatch in a 12 to 18 hours time period and at the most may take up to 48 hours.

But what exactly is a pipped egg?

When an embryo starts tapping the eggshell from inside and makes a hole in the shell, this egg is now called a pipped egg. Pipping is of two types:

• Internal pipping: As oxygen demand increases, the embryo puts its head under the right-wing and makes a hole in the inner membrane that separates egg contents from the air cell, and starts breathing.
• External pipping: As air cell oxygen is consumed, the embryo starts tapping the eggshell from inside, gradually breaking it.

Stay tuned with our latest tips!
You'll enjoy receiving the recent articles directly in your inbox every week!
🐔 I'm in!

What Triggers Hatching?

As the embryo grows old, demand for oxygen and nutrition increases with it. Until a stage comes when it cannot sustain itself inside the egg as the resources are limited.

Around about 18 days yolk sac starts to reduce which is the main source of nutrition for the embryo inside the egg. At the same time, the gaseous exchange which was happening through diffusion from the chorioallantoic membrane also known as CAM cannot fulfill the needs of the embryo.

This triggers the embryo to start using its lungs for breathing, which it does by internal pipping to reach the air cell. As oxygen in the air cell also exhausts, the embryo goes for external pipping, resulting in hatching.

When Should You Help A Chicken Hatch?

I will not recommend you to assist a chick while it’s hatching. Normally, when a chick hatches, blood vessels surrounding the chick get dry. But you never know if all of them are dried or not, so by pulling the shell ahead of time you may damage a major blood vessel which may be lethal to the chick.

Helping a chick that cannot hatch on its own may not be rewarding as these chicks mostly die, even if they live they are weak and prone to disease, if you are running a poultry business I will suggest discarding such chicks in a humane way.

Hatching a pipped egg is not an easy task, so keep reading to know more, so you can get better results.

How Should You Help A Cracked Egg Hatch?

If it’s been more than 3 days since the egg pipped, but no movement is observed, then you should step in, but with great care.

Some indications that the chick may not hatch itself and needs your help are,

• If a pipped egg is not moving for several hours, more than 48 hours, mostly.
• If the membranes around the chick seem to get dry.
• Membranes may contract around the chick if humidity is not proper.

You can spray some water on the egg to increase humidity and soften the membranes, but if it doesn’t work, you should help the chick manually.

Work patiently around the chick by slowly pulling the shell back. Take great care, not to pull any blood vessel with the shell. Remove the shell in small pieces.

If membranes seem tough gently rupture them without damaging the chick. All these procedures may not always be rewarding.

How Do You Tell If An Egg Is Going To Hatch?

I will tell you some simple ways from which you can easily judge if your chicken eggs are near to hatching or not.

• Peeping sounds or clicking sounds that embryos produce are good indicators that eggs are going to hatch soon. If the environment is quiet, you can listen to these sounds.
• Internal pipping is also a good indicator that eggs will hatch soon. You may need a candler or a torch to observe internal pipping.

Do Eggs Get Heavier Before They Hatch?

A chicken egg weighs about 50 to 70 grams and a day-old chick weighs about 35 to 42 grams, so under normal circumstances eggs, don’t get heavier before they hatch.

Eggs have microscopic pores on the surface that allow some moisture from the egg to evaporate, and eggs tend to get lighter as the embryo grows. Weight loss due to evaporation during the incubation stage is about 12%.

How long does it take for a crack to appear on an egg?

More or less, it takes 12 to 24 hours for the external pip or cracks to appear on the egg’s surface following the internal pip. But how does a chick able to crack such a hard shell?

Chicks have a special structure on their beak know as an “egg tooth”. This is a temporary structure. Chicks use this egg tooth for tapping and chipping the shell from inside, resulting in a crack. Chick cracking out of egg also uses a special muscle present in its neck known as “pipping muscle”, which provides the necessary strength required for pipping.

This video is worth a long explanation:

After pipping comes zipping, it is when a chick rotates inside the egg, chipping the shell in a circle. When it is rotated ¾ of the circle, it will stretch its legs and move its wings to crack open the egg completely.

How To Quickly Hatch Your Pipped Chicken Egg?

I will tell you some tips so your chicken’s eggs can hatch soon after they crack.

• Shift the eggs to the hatcher in the last 2 to 3 days. If you don’t have a hatcher, there is nothing to worry about, you can use hatching baskets. A cloth or a rough paper may also be useful as alternatives.
• Cloth or paper should be kept away from the heating source and should not cover the vents.
• Reduce the temperature by 1°F when the eggs are in the hatcher.
• Relative humidity should be between 65-70%.
  You can use a smart humidifier like this one on Amazon to keep it in this range.
• If you don’t have a humidifier you can place wet towels or wet cotton balls around the eggs but make sure they do not touch the eggs.
• Stop turning chicken eggs on day 18th of the incubation.

How Peeping Can Help A Cracked Egg Hatch Early?

Keeping the surroundings quiet around hatching eggs will result in the early hatch because the embryos as they get near to hatching they start making sounds known as peeping or clicking sounds. If surroundings are quiet and hatching eggs are kept close to each other embryos can listen to these sounds and may even communicate. This provides a hatching stimulus to the embryos they start the movement. Although less is known about this phenomenon.

How long does it take for a chicken egg to hatch naturally?

What happens if eggs don't hatch in 21 days?

Does it always take 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch?

Should you help a chick hatch after 24 hours?