Whoa, Fertility!

Our third incubation is off to a great start!  We are hopeful this is a good sign of what is to come with this incubation.  I candled for fertility today and was very overwhelmingly shocked.

In our first incubation, of 7 purchased Dark Brahma hatching eggs, only 5 were fertile, and then 5 eggs from a local friend’s flock that had only 1 fertile.  For a total of 6 fertile out of 12.  That’s 50% fertility.

In our second incubation, of 40 hatching eggs from a local friend’s breeding flock, only 19 were fertile.  That’s 48% fertility.  That rooster is headed for the stew pot, clearly he is not doing his job.

In this incubation we have 26 eggs from a successful breeder of “high-altitude” birds, and 22 eggs from our own breeding pen.  We have 48 eggs total, and 46 are fertile!  That’s 96% fertility!

The 26 high altitude eggs had 100% fertility (whoa!).  Our breeding pen eggs had 2 out of 22 infertile, so 91% fertility (yay!).  From what I understand a good rooster will produce at least 80% fertility, if it is less than that there is a problem.  So it is very great to know that our rooster is able to do the job and do it well.  And wow, the roosters (she has 2) from the breeder I bought the eggs from are REALLY getting the job done.

This has me very, VERY excited about this incubation.  Maybe this time we will actually have good success!  But I am trying to not count my chickens before they are hatched.  🙂