Like someone else said, it depends on your temps. I would just wait until the first one pips. It is true that really the only advantage of cutting them is to see what you have. Some people have said their babies didn't have the egg tooth, or didn't know how to get out, but I'm betting that is fairly uncommon. My clutch last year was a disaster, just about everything that could go wrong with them did, but they all had their egg tooth. I plan to cut after the first one pips.