112 maine agricultural experiment station. i909. 



The Relation between the Fertility and Hatching 

 Quality of Eggs. 



It is obvious that fertility and hatching quality or ability of 

 eggs are two essentially different things. A hen may have a 

 small proportion of her eggs fertile and yet hatch a very high 

 percentage of what of the eggs are fertile, producing there- 

 from healthy chickens. Or, conversely, the eggs of a particu- 

 lar hen may run very high in fertility but none, or very few, 

 of the fertile eggs hatch. These facts are well known to every 

 poultryman. Some striking illustrations of them taken from' 

 the Station's records of the 1908 hatching are shown in Table 

 I. These illustrations are not the most extreme ones which 

 might have been found. They are simply cases which came 

 first to hand in looking over the records, and which show 

 clearly that high fertility does not necessarily mean good 

 hatches and z'ice versa. 



TABLE I. 



Illustrative Cases Shozving Relation Between Fertility and 

 Hatching Quality of Eggs. 



It will be seen that the table is divided into two parts. The 

 upper half includes 4 pullets whose eggs ran high in fertility 

 but hatched very poorly. The lower half of the table exhibits 

 the records of birds showing exactly the opposite condition of 

 affairs. The eggs of these pullets ran relatively low in fertility 



