When can pullet eggs be hatched?

How old do pullets have to be before there is a reasonable chance of hatching out their eggs? My pullets just started laying a few weeks ago and I really want to secure the genes in my flock. Can I incubate these rather smallish eggs.

Yes. The major hatcheries replace their breeder flocks so they'll have young birds producing eggs for hatching. Most of the additional volume in an older hen's egg is water not the nutrients required by the developing embryo.

As pullets tend to come into production at a time of year when demand for eggs is low in my area, rather than throw out surplus eggs I've put them in the incubator. Had good hatch rates of healthy chicks that grow into normal adults.

I have had good luck hatching pullet eggs as well, the only problem I have ever seen is the chicks do start out smaller, most I have found catch up to the Hen egg chicks within a couple weeks, but just so you know you are going to be hatching out smaller chicks.

Hatching pullet eggs is not always a good idea for a number of reasons. The eggs are a bit small and the shells can be a bit denser. Tougher on the chicks that develop. Other reasons are that the pullets have not proven themselves yet. They have not shown that they are good producers, that they have good type (or feather) as mature birds, that they have vitality and resistance to the ugly things out there. Young pullets have not faced the elements to life yet and survived and I think that is a very important thing in a breeding program.

Having said all that, I will hatch pullet eggs, but I wait until they are full sized for what expect from the breed (both egg and pullet). It is not what I like to do and I do it sparingly, but sometimes when you are starting up with a new breed there is not much choice. When I have older girls, the pullets don`t always get a start until after their first adult moult unless they are very special and I can`t help myself.

Opinion, fact, myth, observation, experience. It is the genetics of the parents that dictate size of offspring in any species not the size of the package the embryo is contained in. Case in point - if there is a mating between a German Shepard dog and a Scottish Terrier bitch will all the offspring be the size of the bitch? Or in the case of a 6'10" man mating with a 4'6" woman will all her children be her size?

In the last couple of years I've had at least 4 hens lay their first clutch of eggs in the brush and raise chicks that were at least as large as she is. Broods were all also large - 10 to 14 chicks.

My experience with eggshell quality is that the chicks that have the most problem emerging are the ones in eggs of poor shell quality (thin) not the ones from pullets.

My concern with hatching at this time of year (start of winter) would be more to raising the chicks in adequate warm facilities. Baby chicks need brooding in an area of least 85 F with a "hot spot" of at least 95 F and will need to be kept in a comfortable, warm place for about 6 to 8 weeks. They can't be housed in an unheated building until the voluntarily start to roost at night.

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I prefer to set eggs of 68 grams or over.

I'm going to have to make an observation here. First of all I weighed eggs I've set aside to hatch to produce Red Rocks in January. These are eggs from hens that are various ages. The oldest hens will be about 2 or 3 years old and the youngest new layers. The largest egg weighs 64 gms. or about 2.5 ounces which puts it into the "Extra Large" range. Taking the advice of Mr. Hopkins to only set eggs 68 grams or over may mean a long, long, wait.

Definitely, if the ultimate goal is to breed hens to produce extra large eggs, then select from only those hens that lay big eggs. But majority of consumer egg demand is for "large" eggs and most recipes that call for eggs either state or assume the egg will be around 2 ounces or 60 grams. Ask the manager of a local supermarket which egg size he sells the most of and he'll more than likely say "large".

Another factor to consider when planing to incubate "home grown" eggs is the ultimate use of the hatchlings. If they are going to be raised to be future breeding stock then more care should be taken in selection of desired traits. But if the goal is simply to increase a backyard flock of egg producers, then the outcome of setting pullet eggs will have little effect on either egg size or vitality of the chicks.

turkeylurkey wrote: Another factor to consider when planing to incubate "home grown" eggs is the ultimate use of the hatchlings. If they are going to be raised to be future breeding stock then more care should be taken in selection of desired traits. But if the goal is simply to increase a backyard flock of egg producers, then the outcome of setting pullet eggs will have little effect on either egg size or vitality of the chicks.

Very good point, I tend to always view things with my `breeders` pants on.

I could say something naughty here Coopslave, but I won't, tee hee (also don't want to throw a very good thread off track!)

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Susan wrote:I could say something naughty here Coopslave, but I won't, tee hee (also don't want to throw a very good thread off track!)

Very naughty indeed Susan! I can only imagine what the edit was.

*sorry, now I am being the distraction to all the good info posted here.

Sorry coopslave, I only edited for spelling

Oh boy. Lots to think about, but honestly I don't really get the scientific basis to assuming that chicks hatched from a smaller egg = smaller, or unthrifty chick. I have been impatient and hatched chicks that grew into wonderful, large hens and roosters from smaller eggs, and I have had a great many "big" eggs that were too big to even develop or hatch properly. Egg shape is important, too. Marans eggs that are round shaped, well younger hens eggs seem to hatch better, before they become the monstrous beastly round things that the older hens I have lay. I know of another marans breeder whose eggs from her mature hens had a much lower hatch rate, according to her when she tried to crack the eggs open to assess, the shells were VERY hard. Then again, this is specific to marans.

All in all, if I had little wee bullet shaped eggs from pullets, I probably wouldn't hatch them. I have hatched smaller eggs from sussex and wyandotte flocks and have had quite large offspring grow from them. (shrug) I don't know that there's a rhyme or reason ...... I also don't understand how genetic potential could change if you have the same hen, laying eggs fertilized by the same rooster, only the eggs were of a different size due to pullet maturity. In other species, regardless of the maturity of the parents, offspring can grow to their expected or "normal" size.

Wow, what a most interesting topic....I have some comments about size of egg and durability...

Last spring I received hatching eggs from Ontario. Of the eggs that were sent, 7 were broken and the other 23 were just fine. These came from a beautiful buff orpington line, Hobbychicken's actually, the Homer line. I won't go into that, as it is moot right now. Those eggs were huge, never knew about weighing eggs, but they were a very lovely size and made me very excited about the prospects of any chicks hatched, that the hens I grew out would lay as big an egg.

Two of the 23 eggs that were not broken had detached air cells, I tried to hatch those regardless, and they did not. So that was 21 eggs intact. I am lazy when it comes to candling eggs, becoming less lazy as time goes on. But on the 18th days, when I set the eggs to lockdown, I candled and they looked OK. I know to candle in the dark, but I did not. No clue why, again, just lazy. I know much better than that, and will henceforth. In fairly good light, even the best egg candler does not show what is really going on.

I set those 23 eggs into the lockdown and allowed them to hatch. If I had candled properly, I may not have set 23 eggs to finish off the hatch, my bad, and boy, lessons learned, may one day graduate from that school of hard knocks.

In the end, of the 23 eggs, ten hatched out nicely. I grew them out until about 19 weeks old. Four pullets and 6 cockerels. Four cockerels went for processing in Kelowna and I'm gonna eat those dudes, smiling. They were of an OK size. The buckeyes and buff orpingtons, when I weighed the birds when I got home, were a size that was acceptable to me. Averaging about 4 pounds each. I know that size could certainly be improved. But honestly, four pounds is a good size for me, as my Husband is a lacto-vegetarian and won't eat anything that has breathed air, smiling.

So, where was I going with this. Right large eggs. These eggs travelled by air to B.C., and I am wondering if a good size had a good amount of impact on a pretty reasonable hatch. I consider 50% (a slight bit less) of eggs that were flown almost from one side of the country to the other, to be a decent hatch. I was pleased. I still am wondering, and repeat, that because these eggs were a very good size, that that had a positive impact on the hatch rate. Who knows, but this thread has me ponderin' on things for surely.

A comment or two on some words that Tara spoke:

HigginsRAT wrote:
Uh, sorta...sorta not...LARGE egg, better survival.... Better survival genetics within the egg, sure, better survival...if natural hatched, better care of chick, better parental care, better survival...
It still boils (hard or soft??) down to LARGER (but not too large, moderation here!) egg = BETTER SURVIVAL...

Ontario shipped to B.C. bigger eggs, better survival.

HigginsRAT wrote:
At the Red Deer show this past weekend, I did not have enough time to view the White variety of Chants, but the Buff and the Partridges Varieties, I did and I feel they need to be larger, need more substance. While the showmanship group was searching for Rico, I wandered past the Buff Orpington of Kathy`s. Quickly glancing at it, I immediately thought, 'Oh, there`s the Buff Chants!` Looking up, I then realized, `Uh no, single comb...NOT a Chant.` Kathy`s bird is the size of my Chants and I expected to see the Chants at this show to be this size. Obviously, this was not the case.

I can imagine how big Kathy's bird was, because the lines of mine come from the same place. This is not a secret and I have no problem indicating this....She will have some very nice birds to work with when she gets going in the spring. Nice to hear.

This, Tara, gives me a very good idea of how big your Chanteclers are, and I find this very impressive. This line of buff orpington is very big and beautiful, without a single doubt in my mind....

Now we get on to the point of quality of egg. Better eggs, of course better quality.

But I am going to bring a picture here of an egg of one of my blue cochins from back in our old life. She (one of two) would have been about 9 months old when she laid this egg, which I went on to hatch out. I still have the chick that grew out of that very wrinkled egg, she is one of my four blue adult cochins. She will be coming up to 2 years old this spring, her mamma(s), not sure who laid the egg, would be coming up to three this spring. The hatch occurred on the last day of January 2010. I know which hen she is and I would not say that she is much differently sized than the others.

I had read, as I was learning, to not hatch eggs that are not the perfect egg, but did it anyways, just for the fun of it. It hatched just fine and the egg was pretty wrinkly. The will to live.

I don't hatch eggs that are not of nice size or shape anymore. Just can't be bothered, and I always choose the eggs that are of good quality. I may have to find out what is with one of my cochin hens though. The membrane on her eggs is very, very tough. Uno had hatched out some of my cochin eggs recently, and she had to help some out, that membrane was just so tough. I know that first hand, cause trying to crack one of her eggs is a mighty job, the shell breaks nicely, but try to get that membrane to split, makes an interesting event of trying to make some yummy eggs for breakfast, smiling. That is another thread, another time. This egg is the one that is very dark brown and I know who she is and I saw what she did, I know that hen, tough right from the very get go....

This is a picture of that wrinkly egg of so long ago....have a most wonderful day, CynthiaM.



Yep, it hatched just fine

I'm still not comfortable with

I prefer to set eggs of 68 grams or over.

I've done more research and calculations and have come to the conclusion that one of several things may have resulted in this person recommending this size limit. One may simply have been a typo error. Another maybe that he's dealing with a variety of chicken that typically lays extra large eggs or He may simply have done a miscalculation in converting from Imperial Measure to Metric.

A "large" egg is accepted as being about 2 ounces and is the most common "normal" size for most large breed chickens. Old recipes usually called for 2 ounce eggs; newer ones for "large" especially if volume of liquid in the recipe is important. 2 ounces converted to metric = about 58 grams.

I've been through the last two day's egg production from my mixed flock most of which are pure heritage breeds and also of mixed ages from pullet to 3 or 4 year olds. I haven't been able to find a single egg of more than 64 gms.

Before we pass on any advice to a novice contemplating collecting eggs to hatch I think there needs to be clarification of this "weight" or "size" issue. Maybe those of you that breed to meet "standards of perfection" for competition purposes could take a few minutes to actually weigh a sampling of your flocks eggs? Or select a sampling of those that you'd consider incubating?

OK, I have weighed the eggs I collected today. 4 pullet and 4 hens (approx 19months old) and here are the averages from today.
pullets = 50grams & hens = 58.5grams
It would be interested to hear what others are getting.

Yay, another journey, gotta get the scales out....kitchen scales are most marvelous things, beautiful times, beautiful days, CynthiaM.

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Wow, Tara, what a post about the egg size, I love it!! I will over the next few days only be able to actually get some weights of pullet eggs. My buckeye adults are molting, the adult buff orpingtons are finished molting, but just randomly beginning to lay, and well, two of the cochins are laying. So I am going to have to put this weighing of adult eggs on hold, but I will get weights of the pullet eggs of both breeds, orpington and buckeye. I think this is fascinating. I do not think my buckeyes lay a large egg, and may be more in the medium sized range, but honestly, shouldn't be speaking out of line, as I have no actual clue, only weighing eggs will work.

The picture of your eggs were beautiful and they surely are large from what I can tell. The picture of the four eggs cracked on the plate was even more impressive!! What a difference in quality of how the eggs present.

When we were on our family camp to Roberts Creek this past late August, I brought about 9 dozen eggs (all eaten up that weekend, big family meals). My Nephew-in-Law is a chef and he did some of the breakfast cooking to help my Husband, who mostly did it all (whole lotta cookin' goin' on). This fellow poached the eggs in a big deep frying pan, 2 dozen at once. No clue how he got them all to be lovely soft cooked eggs, but he achieved this task. The intention was to have eggs Benedict, which occurred (some went back for more than their fair share of eggs, smiling). Those eggs when they came out of the water looked like golfballs. Round as round could be, no flattening of the eggs, which most of my family is used to, as they don't have chickens. The shock and surprise and compliments that came from every soul at those breakfast tables made me proud, so very proud, that I had eggs that were of such good looks and taste. I wish I had taken a picture. But as growers of chickens and eggs, of homegrown quality and freshness, we all know full well what a beautiful egg looks like, especially when cracked and put into a pan, ain't it a lovely thing!!

Sorry, slightly off topic, I know -- just had to toot the horn for all of us that are so privileged to have our own home grown eggs, nice topic by the way....have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

My apologies for not reading between the lines on the posting that started this thread.
"nuthatch333" asked "when can pullet eggs be hatched?" I didn't realize she was asking "When can Partridge Chantecler's eggs be hatched?" Being somewhat removed from the Alberta chicken breeding community I don't know who raises what. Any of the suggestions and observations I made were of a "general nature".

The vast majority of consumers buy a "large" egg. This is based on personal observation from:

1.Previously working in a grocery store where "large" eggs were by far the biggest demand size. We might have ordered 1 case of small; 2 cases of medium; to every 15 cases of large. We never had any demand for "extra large".

2. Many of my egg customers contribute egg cartons (recycle). The vast majority are marked "large". Once in a while I get an "extra large" and a few marked "medium".

I am searching for words so as not to offend those who are challenged by aiming to improve certain breeds. I sell a quite a few chicks. Have included a variety of rarer breeds in my hatchery orders and have experimented with hatching several of these. The bottom line is that the majority of livestock customers desire an chicken breed that is a proven year round egg layer of "standard" sized eggs. I have a few inquiries for "meat" breeds, but mostly they only want females and have no intention of ever eating their old hens.

This is a most interesting and informative thread. When I started it my mind was on quite a different track. When I stated it was to preserve the genes that was exactly what my concern was. I have enough chanteclers that I can afford to wait and choose the best of the best. It makes sense to do so. When I posted initialy I was concerned about my small flock of speckled sussex. My goal was in fact to increase my flock. So you were right on point turkeylurkey thanks for the input. The thread took such and interesting direction I felt no need to clarify that.
That being said I would like to add my two bits worth on this very interesting subject.
I think though that there is a nature-nurture argument to be made here. A smaller egg certainly will produce a smaller chick. If hatched with normal size chicks it may be expected to be at a competitive disadvantage and not get equal access to food and warmth, it may also get picked on more, and over time the discrepancy in size may get amplified. If on the other hand all chicks hatched were from small eggs and another batched hatched from the same hen and same rooster once fully grown and the F1 generations were then compared when they reached full maturity, I would be interested to see what the discrepancy in size and vitality would be. It is also possible that even if the small egged chicks remained small as the studies seem to indicate, the f2 generation may catch up to the f2 generation of the larger eggs since the genes would remain the same, all other things being equal.

BriarwoodPoultry wrote:I also don't understand how genetic potential could change if you have the same hen, laying eggs fertilized by the same rooster, only the eggs were of a different size due to pullet maturity. In other species, regardless of the maturity of the parents, offspring can grow to their expected or "normal" size.

You would however lose one precious generation of selective breeding in the process.
When I posted this original question I was concerned about my very small flock of speckled sussex, one rooster one pullet and two hens.
These exquisite birds are for me irreplaceable,I would be willing to try and hatch the pullet eggs even knowing they may be small and unthrifty because they still contain these prized genes I want to keep. I will worry about selecting for other traits when I am sure I have enough individuals from this line to guarantee its continuance.
So while I agree it is best to choose large perfect eggs, there are times that you must work with what you have.
I also agree by waiting until after the first moult to incubate, you will help weed out weaknesses that will help the long term vitality of the flock. Again however good birds can die, not always attributed to a weak bird. You need to be raising sufficient numbers to strictly adhere to survival of the fittest. When we deal with heritage birds whose survival has been in some cases brought to the brink we may have to from time to time compromise what we would like to do.
I need to really delve into some of studies to comment any further, so much good info here.
Tara thank you your kind words
I have been so impressed with the knowledge and conscientious dedication to quality you and the people on this site exhibit. Big shoes to fill.

I'm going to guess you'll be hard-pressed to find any eggs that are 68 gms. from a Speckled Sussex hen. I've just had a hatch of Cuckoo Maran chicks from what I'd call "pullet" eggs. The pullets had been laying for a couple of weeks, but eggs were small in size. Chicks had no problems emerging from eggs and are a healthy, vigorous, bunch.

I intend on hatching Speckled Sussex in 2012. Chicks will not be destined for the "showing" market, but will go to "collectors" or people desiring a varied flock of egg producers. My current dilemma is of which rooster of three to keep. One has a lot more "speckling". Another seems to exhibit a more friendly nature, but then again it might be the start of aggression as it tends to follow me around.

My three hens are still in the general population so I don't know how big their eggs are or if they have even started to lay.

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My Gawd Tara, where do you get the energy for these posts!!! You wear me out just reading them.

I had a 61 gramer today. I suspect they may get a bit bigger as the laying season goes on, but time will tell. My girls are not yet 2 years old.

Nuthatch, I hear you about the precious ones. I have 3 Wheaten Am pullets and 2 cockerels that I don`t like to look at to much in case fate wants to play a nasty trick on me. I will be hatching from them, egg size and type put on the back burner until I have the numbers to be selective. They will all get a go.
It took me 2 hatches to get 2 pullets and the 1 cockerel and 1 pullet took some sweet talking and promise of eggs. The last cockerel was kindly provided by Hidden. So hard to come by and so wanted it is hard not to worry about them. So I am breaking some of my own rules for these ones for the next 2 years and then when I have the numbers and quality I want, I will be just as ruthless. It is all about building it up.

CynthiaM and Tara I love to poach pullet eggs! They stay together sooo nice and they make these pretty little packages. Yum, yum. No extra large eggs for me when I poach, give me the little girl eggs for sure.

I agree that many of the breeds are not big enough, but I think you have to be careful the way the growth happens. I do not want a big old bird that grows all frame and feather first (like a big old Charolais steer, not the feather part) and then thinks about putting on some meat when it is 25 weeks old. They need to grow heft and frame at the same time to be of use to me. The sussex down in Oz are huge birds with not limit of upper weight in their Standard, but it takes them soooo long to grow! Lovely big birds when they finally get there, but take way to long for me. By the way, the girls I had laid a very small egg for their size. They were always a disappointment compared to the Australorps and Barnevelders.
Give me a well grown, chunky bird between 20 and 24 weeks and I am a happy girl.