How to Tell If an Egg Is Incubated?

Incubation is the process where an egg heats as the chick inside of it develops so it can hatch. If an egg is not properly incubated, the organism inside the egg will die before it gets to the hatching phase. Mother birds will normally incubate their eggs themselves by sitting on them, or the eggs will go into an incubating machine to keep the temperature and humidity constant. Knowing if an egg is incubated or not requires some observation.

Things You'll Need

  • Thermometer
Show More

Instructions

    • 1

      Ask where the egg came from. Eggs from a supermarket are infertile, while eggs from a breeder farm may or may not have been incubated yet.

    • 2

      Examine the egg's shell. Cracks or missing pieces in the shell indicate that the egg was not successfully incubated because a damaged shell will not enable the egg to sustain life.

    • 3

      Test the temperature of the egg by holding the tip of a thermometer against the shell. Incubation requires heat, with the optimal temperature being approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit according to the University of Illinois. If the egg feels cold, it has not been incubated or was not incubated successfully because it would have already hatched otherwise.

    • 4

      Watch the egg over several days. A successfully incubated egg takes about 21 days for chickens and if the egg hasn't hatched by then, the egg wasn't incubated or wasn't done so successfully.