112 mains: agricui^turai, expe;rime;nt station. 1909. 



The: Relation be:tv/ei;n the: Fertiuty 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 ^yell 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 vice versa. 



TABLE I. 



Illustrative Cases Showing Relation Between Fertility and 

 Hatching Quality of Bggs. 



Band number 

 of bird. 



Total number 



of this bird's 



eggs set. 



Per cent, of 



these eg?s which 



were fertile. 



Per cent, of 



fertile eggs 



hatched. 



Number of 

 different 



incubators 

 in which these 

 eggs were set. 



393 



57 



91 



12 



6 



27 



48 



92 



18 



7 



757 



62 



90 



23 



7 



707 



30 



100 



20 



3 



375 



45 



64 



41 



7 



705 



32 



66 



38 



5 



753 



57 



' 54 



61 



7 



745 



41 



59 



50 



4 



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 



