The angst isn't bad, after you've hatched as many eggs as I have there isn't much you can't tackle head on. I have to get most of my eggs from other sources. There is a man down the road that owns a feed store and has most of McMurray's heritage breeds and I buy a LOT from him. He has the old standards like RIR's, Barred rocks, dominiques, etc... I candle pretty much at day 7 so I can toss the duds and then again at day 18 or 19 when I move them to a hatcher. All in all we probably have a 98% fertility rate. I know which chickens are more worried about eating instead of fertilizing eggs and I keep my eye on those eggs. The worst part is marking on every egg. I hand write the date, what breed, the color and all that on each egg or I will forget what is what. And really I do enjoy it, its really cool to have people stop by the house and walk around and see our farm and talk chicken. People are in awe when they see all the things we have here and they LOVE to go into the hatching house and see all the babies. I have a 2 year old daughter and she helps me. That's how she learned how to count and her abc's as she put each chick in its correct brooder.
