How long do I wait for eggs to hatch?

[jessmorris]

Hello,
my patient modern game banty Shirley has been sitting on some cream legbar eggs for 24 days, how much longer shall I give it? Her pal Deirdre (also modern game banty) hatched the Maranses after 23 days ....I don't want Shirley to wear herself out. I haven't candled the eggs as I don't have a strong beamed torch. Any ideas just how late hatching can be? There's no cheeping in the eggs.
cheers,
Jess

[walldanzig]

not sure Jess I have some in the incy now two have hatched and there are 5 more in there I'm going to give it untill day 28 then im clearing them out. I figure if they havent hatched a week later then thats it.

[jessmorris]

Thankyou for your reply Walldanzig - I'll give mine 28 days as well then. I read on here that someone had hatched some on day 26 but had to help them out of the shells.......its hard to know what is best.....

[jessmorris]

What day did the first two hatch on? I've had all mine hatch late from previous clutches - one to three days. the one that hatched on day 24 is always slower than the others.

[Shellintons]

We've had the odd egg hatch a week late. I usually give it a few more days as they may have been laid over a period of days rather than all over one or two.
Good luck

[RichmondHens]

They should take 21 days from start of incubation so date of lay is irrelevant. Naturally a bird would lay a clutch of eggs over sometimes as long as two weeks before starting incubation. The very freshest laid might hatch a day earlier, but that's all. Late hatchers may come on day 22 or even 23 but you can usually hear them scratching or cheeping so you know something will arrive at some stage. If all your eggs are silent then it is unlikely they will hatch.

Is it possible you have miscalculated the start of incubation? You may have set them on a certain date but the hen may have got on and off a bit for a couple of days before starting to heat them up properly and therefore moved the hatch date herself by a day or two.

[walldanzig]

Hi Jess. the first two hatched on day 21 still nothing on the others. How about you? They are all in an incubator so the hen laying at later dates is not an issue as I took them all on the same morning and put them in the incubator at the same time.

[walldanzig]

Hi Jess just wanted to let you know day 25 and another one is pipping

[jessmorris]

Thanks to everyone who replied - very interesting. I do think that warmth is an issue - small hens, big eggs, so it may well take the banties a while to get the full sized eggs to temperature. The maranses eggs I hatched earlier in the year took 22 and 23 days to hatch. Yesterday I cracked these eggs as there was no sound from any of them and they were all empty with no signs of any development, so I guess a duff cockerel??
Bit of a waste of poor Shirley's time!

[Nicos]

Now you say that about getting the eggs 'up to temperature' before counting 'Day 1'
...hmm..my banties hatches Marans eggs and both lots were over- one by 2 days and the other by several days- and they are much smaller than the first hatching- although they came from the same nesting box!

sorry about your news Jess- poor Shirley.