Incubating eggs

[PoultryGirly]

I was wondering approximately how many eggs will actually hatch. Like how many eggs will hatch out of 5 or how many eggs will hatch out of 100. Just need an average.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

We would love a 100% hatch. I had on once on a dozen Bantam Barred cochins. Anying above 50% on shipped eggs, you are doing good.

 

[Queen of the chickens]

It depends a lot on your incubator, your technique, and also if you are using shipped eggs or those you collect yourself. We had a 57% hatch rate on our last hatch. I think around 60% is common for a lot of folks.

 

[AinaWGSD]

There are too many variables to come up with an overall average for everyone. Your incubation methods, the health of the flock that laid the eggs, how old the eggs were when you set them, how the eggs were stored and handled before being placed in the incubator, the fertility rate of the eggs (was the rooster amorous, or not so much a ladies man, were there temperature extremes that could decrease fertility in the parent stock, the diet of the parent stock), and whether or not the eggs were shipped are just some of the things that can affect hatch rates.

I am currently on day 14 of my first hatch. We had never actually seen our rooster mount any of our hens, we have never done this before and don't quite know what we're doing (or, rather, what will work best for us), we have a cheap incubator that is notorious for certain issues that can affect hatch rates, and some of our eggs were older than what is generally considered ideal. We are setting the bar low and hoping for the best, we would be satisfied with a 20% hatch rate. Which means that out of the 32 eggs we set, we only need to hatch 6 to meet our goal. 13 of the eggs we started with weren't even fertile, so already we're down to 59% due to fertility not being 100%. I candled tonight and it seems we have 15 eggs with movement, 2 that were so dark that they were really hard to see into (I'm going to assume they are ok unless I candle again and see that they clearly are not at the same point as the others developmentally), and 2 that I am almost certain are dead. That brings us down to 53% so far with a week to go until they are supposed to hatch. And if we were to make it with all 17 of the eggs I'm sure are good to hatch date and none of them made it out of the shell alive we wouldn't be the first for this to happen to.