Are you needing a fast, easy way to keep track of your breeding flock’s fertility? Or help calculating fertility percentage in your breeding pen or hatching eggs? I’ll show you all the math shortcuts that make record keeping quick and simple! Plus I’ll share a FREE printable hatching egg & hen fertility tracking sheet:
Hatching Egg & Hen Fertility Tracking Sheet
Good record keeping is an important part of your breeding work. I’ll show you how to best track who is fertile, who is not, and what percentage hatch rates you’re getting so you can share that info with hatching egg buyers:
Test Hatching Required
Fertility rate tracking sheets are intended to be used when you set your own eggs in an incubator to do a test hatch. You don’t need to set multiple dozens but ideally 2-3 eggs from each hen in each pen is suggested. This can help give you an idea of which hen may be avoiding the rooster or having fertility issues.
Rooster Fertility Declines Rapidly
Roosters are most fertile during the first 1.5 years of their life. His fertility will slowly begin to wane during his second year. Many roosters begin experiencing less fertility in their third year and may have low fertility after age 4. Tracking rooster hatch dates and ages is important! Replace him every other year with a son or fresh, young rooster to ensure your hatching egg fertility rates remain high.
High Hatching Egg Fertility Required
Some hens, especially girls over the age of 2, can be adept at avoiding the rooster. If everyone but one or two older girls are being regularly fertilized, your rooster is doing his job. If you experience less than 80% fertility rate in all your hatching eggs, this can indicate your rooster’s fertility may be waning. If you’re breeding for profit, you need to use a fresh, young rooster, replaced every other year. Scroll down for details on how to calculate percent fertility rate!
How to Calculate Percent Fertility in a Breeding Pen
Eggs in the incubator who show development (even if they are quitters or fail to hatch) ÷ Total Number of Eggs Set in the Incubator = Fertility Rate. This will give you the Percent Fertility from that breeding pen. For example, if you have 9 eggs that developed and hatched, 1 quitter, and 2 eggs that were not fertilized from 12 eggs you set in an incubator, you have a total of 10 eggs that had some development. 10 ÷ 12 = 0.83333 or 83.3% Fertility Rate from that specific breeding pen. 80% or higher is considered a good fertility rate.
How to Calculate Hatch Rate Percent
The Number of Eggs that Hatched ÷ Total Number of Eggs Set = Hatch Rate. So if you had 9 eggs hatch out of 12 total eggs set in the incubator, 9 ÷ 12 = 0.75 or 75% hatch rate.
> > > Download the Free Hatching Egg & Hen Fertility Tracking Sheet Here:
Need More Advanced Tracking Help?
If you need multiple detailed tracking sheets to best manage your flock, please check out the low-cost Chicken Breeder Tracking Sheet Bundle in my shop:
Boost Hatching Egg Sales
You’ll attract more hatching egg buyers if you conduct test hatches each year. Buyers want to see pictures of just-hatched chicks so they know what colors your flock produces. You will need to know your fertility and hatch rate percents so you can properly time hatching egg sales. Some roosters slow down on mating hens in the winter and may not increase their frequency until February or March. Test hatching allows you to monitor any seasonal cycles or fertilization issues your flock may be experiencing before it turns into trouble with hatching egg buyers.
Troubleshooting Fertility Issues:
Here are some things you may run into as you crack open eggs and conduct test hatches:
Egg Has No “Bullseye” Germinal Disc: Your rooster is probably not mating that hen. She may be running from him and successfully avoiding him because there are too many females under just one rooster. A roo over 2 years old can only fertilize around 10 hens regularly. Reduce the number of hens to get better fertilization. If it is wintertime and the rooster is over the age of 2, he may have reduced the amount of mating he is doing. A fresh, young rooster will remedy this issue if you don’t want to wait for him to pick up the pace in spring.
An Egg Never Develops in the Incubator: That individual egg was either not fertilized or not properly fertilized with a viable sperm. This is common and expected in 1 out of every 12-15 hatching eggs. It happens.
Eggs Begin to Develop then Quit in the Incubator: Eggs that start to develop were fertilized by the rooster so he’s doing his job. Quitters can happen for any number of reasons. One quitter out of every 12-15 eggs is fairly normal. Chicks develop so rapidly that if one cell division goes wrong, the genetic error is almost always fatal. If you have greater than 50% quitters between day 3 and 17 in each hatch from your pen, this can indicate you may have inbred your flock for too long. (Longer than 3 generations.) If you are new to incubator hatching, “quitters” are usually user error, often resulting from improper incubator humidity or temperature at egg level. An incubator in front of a sunny window or near a microwave will have “quitters” because UV or microwave radiation is killing the embryo inside the eggs.
Chicks Develop But Fail to Hatch: This is often incubator user error. It can indicate your incubator humidity levels are too high if chicks develop, pip internally, drown and never hatch out. If chicks get “shrink wrapped” and stuck in their shells where they die before hatching, this indicates incubator humidity levels were too low.
I Heard Roosters Stay Fertile Until They Die?
There is a common misconception that roosters remain fertile forever. This is untrue, but the rumor persists, perhaps because humans believe all male animals remain fertile until death. (Chickens don’t.) A rare few roosters will remain somewhat fertile beyond 4 years old but they are the exception. Roosters used in a for-profit breeding program must perform at a high level. Since his fertility will naturally wane as he ages, he must be replaced with a fresh, young male eager to do the job. It is common to replace roosters every other year but replacing every year is also fine.
Thank You, Chicken Breeders!
I hope this free fertility tracking sheet helps your record keeping efforts as you continue to breed and offer your beautiful eggs to the world. Backyard chicken keepers everywhere thank you for the gorgeous chicks and stunning egg colors you produce!
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