Hatch rate caulculations, include dead chicks?

[dand883]

Hi Guys, this time around when our quail chicks hatched we had 2 that hatched out, but then died in the incubator before we moved them to the brooder.

When you're looking at your hatch rates, do you include them in your hatched numbers since they did successfully get out of the shell, or would you put them in with your unhatched numbers since you didn't get a live healthy chick from it?

I'm not a business, or selling eggs, so a certain hatch % isn't my main goal, more curiosity of what the normal practice is

 

[Mellowmalt]

it depends who the judge is. If it is god you are trying to impress, well he will know the score no matter what number you come up with, if it is your dog, he will give you an approving woof, if it is yourself, make it the highest number you can. Honestly we all have different criteria.
If a chick dies that is a definite % reduction in my books but it did technically hatch.
I would count a hatched chick as a healthy chick , even a hatched chick that survives but needs to be culled is not a successful hatch in my books even though again it technically hatched.
The thing I think most disagree on is whether to count infertile eggs or not. I do not count infertile eggs to my hatch rate. That would be like adding rocks into the incubator and hoping something one day will hatch out of them, nothing ever will just lke nothing ever will out of an infertile egg. So all counting infertile eggs does is reduce your % when you could be incubating perfectly.

If you only count fertile eggs then you will get a much better idea of how well your incubator is performing.

So I would rate eggs on fertility, they get a seperate score for that and then healthy hatch rate from the fertile ones, discarding any that didn't hatch or died.

 

[dand883]

it depends who the judge is. If it is god you are trying to impress, well he will know the score no matter what number you come up with, if it is your dog, he will give you an approving woof, if it is yourself, make it the highest number you can. Honestly we all have different criteria.
If a chick dies that is a definite % reduction in my books but it did technically hatch.
I would count a hatched chick as a healthy chick , even a hatched chick that survives but needs to be culled is not a successful hatch in my books even though again it technically hatched.
The thing I think most disagree on is whether to count infertile eggs or not. I do not count infertile eggs to my hatch rate. That would be like adding rocks into the incubator and hoping something one day will hatch out of them, nothing ever will just lke nothing ever will out of an infertile egg. So all counting infertile eggs does is reduce your % when you could be incubating perfectly.

If you only count fertile eggs then you will get a much better idea of how well your incubator is performing.

So I would rate eggs on fertility, they get a seperate score for that and then healthy hatch rate from the fertile ones, discarding any that didn't hatch or died.

I'm with you on only counting fertile eggs, to me that's a separate measure than hatch rate, just wasn't sure about the normal accepted method of hatch rates