Is she considering going broody?

[doctormap22]

Day 16 and still going well, she was off the nest yesterday for some food and water briefly and then back on again before I had a chance to check her eggs for any outliers. Five days to go. I have high hopes that she will be able to hatch at least half of her dozen eggs that she is setting on, maybe more than that.

 

[doctormap22]

Yesterday was hatch day. First one hatched out Sunday evening, the rest hatched during the day yesterday and last night. Today I decided to pull the ones that haven't hatched and candle them. Out of the 11 eggs she still had under her by day 21, there were only 3 that haven't hatched by today. I candled those 3 and didn't see any signs of life, no movement, no peeping, so I discarded them. So, that means that she hatched out 8 out of the 11 eggs she was setting on.

 

[Rare]

Yesterday was hatch day. First one hatched out Sunday evening, the rest hatched during the day yesterday and last night. Today I decided to pull the ones that haven't hatched and candle them. Out of the 11 eggs she still had under her by day 21, there were only 3 that haven't hatched by today. I candled those 3 and didn't see any signs of life, no movement, no peeping, so I discarded them. So, that means that she hatched out 8 out of the 11 eggs she was setting on.

 

[Mrs. K]

8/11 is pretty good! About 73%.

Years ago, on this forum there was a post, in which people wrote in the number they set, and what hatched, and added their results to previous posters. Mathematically, this was pretty darn good. When one is working with statistics, it is important to get a LARGE amount of data.

After a while, with a lot of chick data, it worked out to be about 50% average. Which of course, means that there are poor hatches and nearly perfect hatch in the data - but over all, 50% live chicks.

So if I get above 50% I think I am doing pretty good, and I do not set eggs with the expectation everyone of them will hatch.

Mrs K