78.5% Hatch Rate?

[lazy gardener]

Yes, congrats on an excellent hatch with shipped BLRW. The only time I've dealt with shipped eggs was when a bunch of us got together and traded eggs just for grins and giggles. One batch of eggs arrived with a lot of broken shells, they were a mess. But, I got a couple of nice birds out of them. the other batch fared better, and hatch rate was a bit better, but nothing to write home about. My only cost for each batch was to pay the shipping.

 

[lilmillefleur]

I have never hatched eggs, maybe in a year or two I will, but I personally would not count fertile eggs unless I wanted to see how my flock was doing. The reason is, the incubator or shipping factors do not determine wether an egg is fertile or infertile.

PS Windus sorry about your d'Uccle eggs. I hope you got your money back.

 

[song of joy]

Fertility rate = # of fertile eggs / # of eggs set
Hatch rate = # of eggs that hatch / # of eggs that were fertile

Fertile eggs include any eggs showing any sign of development, even if they are "early quitters". They also include fertilized eggs that don't develop at all. Sometimes it's difficult to determine whether or not a "clear" egg is fertile unless it's cracked open. Even then it may be difficult to see the bulls-eye (evidence of fertility) after an egg has been incubating for a week or more. In practice, I think most people go on the assumption that clear eggs (showing no signs of development) are infertile.

An 80% hatch rate is good for an incubator - congratulations!! In comparison, it's not unusual to have 100% hatch rates when using broody hens. I've only tried to incubate one batch of shipped eggs and had a 0% hatch rate!

I agree that it's helpful to keep separate stats on each batch of eggs that you set (e.g., shipped batch #1, shipped batch #2, home flock).

 

[The Moonshiner]

In the case of my BLRW shipped eggs, I paid $1.86 per egg, I paid for 12 but they sent 14. In looking at one of my pics, it appears I have 8 BLRW chicks in there so that would mean I paid $3.25 per chick and had a hatch rate of 57.14% which is pretty good for shipped eggs from what I have seen on other threads.

For shipped eggs that's a great hatch. And a great price.
So does that mean 14 hatched out of 19 set/ 15 viable of your eggs? That's a great hatch also.
Of course the d'uccles not so much but that sounds like fertility/ shipping issues. Not your fault.
All in all you did really good. Congrats

 

[Windus]

PS Windus sorry about your d'Uccle eggs. I hope you got your money back.

Nope, seller would not even respond to my email about it, I even sent pics of each egg at 9 days into incubation showing each egg was totally clear.

 

[lazy gardener]

That's tough. If you had all eggs incubated at the same time, it would seem to me that they shipper should have offered some sort of compensation. I could understand her not wanting to compensate if those D'Uccle eggs were incubated alone, so there was not a "control group" for side by side comparison. Based on that info, depending how strongly you feel about it, you could leave negative feed back to warn that shipper's future customers. On the other hand, the entire blame could rest with our lovely USPS. Eggs placed directly in front of a heater, or tossed around would not be likely to hatch. How well were they packaged???

 

[Windus]

That's tough. If you had all eggs incubated at the same time, it would seem to me that they shipper should have offered some sort of compensation. I could understand her not wanting to compensate if those D'Uccle eggs were incubated alone, so there was not a "control group" for side by side comparison. Based on that info, depending how strongly you feel about it, you could leave negative feed back to warn that shipper's future customers. On the other hand, the entire blame could rest with our lovely USPS. Eggs placed directly in front of a heater, or tossed around would not be likely to hatch. How well were they packaged???

They seemed to be packaged fine. There was a hairline crack in one, that I only saw after candleing, so it very well may have been there before shipping but since they sent extra I did not worry about it.

I would have been happy with any sort of compensation but I did leave negative feedback since they ignored me. When I did I saw several other negative feedbacks had been left also that had not been there when I ordered the eggs so I am thinking the issue is on their end, not on the shipping end.

 

[Windus]

Fertility rate = # of fertile eggs / # of eggs set
Hatch rate = # of eggs that hatch / # of eggs that were fertile

Thank you, that is how I was thinking of it as well. Hatch rate is the number that could have hatched, not ones that had no potential to hatch.

 

[Smuvers Farm]

Hi Windus. I just had to purchase the incubator you have. It works well? No temp or humidity issues?