What's a good hatch rate?

[millipede]

We used to keep poultry years ago and we've hatched our own, etc... but it's been a while... and this silly virus thing had my wife a little panicky about the food supply, availability, shopping, etc... So apparently we're going to raise chickens, quail, and rabbits. I'm not super thrilled by how much here but the kids love it. HA

I heard my wife tell the kids, several times, that if 50% hatch, that will be good. That sounds horrible to me honestly and, I THINK we did much better than that when we hatched eggs years ago.
So far we actually hatched well below 50%. My wife did drop the quail eggs so 9 out of 24 might be good still. The speckled sussex, I think we had about 5 hatch out of 24, I think. She got some random barnyard mix eggs from someone(these have mostly all been off craigslist by the way) and none hatched. Some wyandottes and only one hatched... a dozen or more maran and only 3 hatched. It hasn't been good. She has an automatic turner now to hopefully help. I'm not sure if we had duds or if something happened... she had muscovy eggs and the ones that did start, all died early on in development. I have no idea...

But, my main question really is simply, what's considered a good or even an average hatch rate?
I guess a side question would be about to clean or not clean the eggs. I thought, years ago, that we didn't do much to them. She's the type that looks at a million youtube videos and sometimes trusts information to quickly. I think she wiped down the earlier ones this time with just water. She found something online that suggested using diluted mouthwash to gently wipe the dirt off... so, she started doing that.

 

[Kdlevesque]

We just had a hatch about 10 days ago and ours was at 78% and I was told that was really really good

 

[kefiren]

also interested along the same lines. if you know what an average hatch rate is, then you can sort of decide how many eggs to put in!

 

[Offshoreorca]

The hatch rate really depends where the eggs come from (parent stock/nutrition), how they were transported, and how good of an incubator you have - or how much time and skill you have to fiddle with it to make things right. When I hatch from my own flock in a Brinsea Mini II Advanced I have nearly 100% hatch rates using clean eggs and only having one (or none) infertile. However, when I hatched from eggs I bought that were driven from 6 hours away and between 5-8 days old when set, I was thankful to have 5 out of 7 hatch - two early quitters - healthily as I had no control over parent nutrition, storage, and half of the transportation (and the eggs were a little dirty). For any sort of shipped eggs, 50% is considered an excellent hatch rate and many experience less than that.

I personally don't clean my eggs (for fear of disrupting the bloom and because some studies show that a tiny bit of dirt doesn't effect hatch rates), but I also usually only set clean eggs. If they are heavily soiled or you don't know their origin, it might be beneficial to clean them - there are lots of instructions how to do so on this forum.

 

[mdees88]

But, my main question really is simply, what's considered a good or even an average hatch rate?

Out of around 600 shipped quail eggs from multiple sources I've averaged 73% on all eggs I set and 94% on viable eggs at lockdown. Worst hatch was 62% total / 84% viable.

I think 50% is a good recommendation for the minimum expected hatch rate if you do your part, especially if we're talking shipped eggs. But it really depends on if you count infertile eggs in your hatch rate. With shipped eggs I don't think every clear egg at lockdown was actually infertile. I think some embryos may get destroyed during the shipping process. If you're getting eggs locally from someone who has no fertility issues then I do not think 50% is a "good" hatch rate...

Having a properly tuned incubator is probably the biggest factor in successful hatch rates. I'm pretty sure the incubator is your problem considering you're having bad luck with several different types of eggs from several different people.

Is yours forced air or still air? Do you have an external thermometer/hygrometer that you can trust or calibrate to verify it's accuracy or are you going the incubators temp/humidity gauge?

Examining the unhatched eggs is a good way to narrow down issues. If all the ones that didn't were clear then it might not be the incubator.

Having an auto turner is very convenient. I would definitely recommend it.

I've never washed/cleaned any of my eggs but I've never set any that are filthy either.