I bought a lot of eggs this year chicken, turkey, & goose and had a very dismal hatch rate, no thanks to the USPS.

Of 47 chicken eggs only 11 hatched and only 8 made it to pullet size the last of the last 3 I hatched died this morning out of the blue, the other 2 were iffy right from the time they hatched and both died within 48 hours.7 goose eggs and only 3 hatched but all 3 are doing very well and growing like weeds, 17 turkey eggs and only 1 hatched - 4 never even made it here in one piece they were smashed when a heavy package was set on top of the package the eggs were in even though it was well marked FRAGILE.

We had a duck sit on 12 eggs that she laid and 10 hatched, I had 4 eggs that I picked up out here in the poultry yard 2 duck & 2 chicken all 4 hatched and all 4 are doing great as are all 10 ducklings momma duck hatched. I guess next year I'll just grab a couple dozen eggs from our potluck hens & roosters.

I'm hoping at least one of the geese is a gander so I can hatch a few more goose eggs, I'd love to see what a cross between a Sebastipol and a Pilgrim or American Buff turns out looking like. When the 2 Sebastipol hatched based on size difference it looks like I got 1 of each male & female and the Buff we'll just have to wait and see seeing as only 1 of 3 hatched. We already had a female Pilgrim and she's been a fantastic mom to her 3 adopted goslings and 1 duckling. She had 2 ducklings she had adopted but I had to put one in a brooder pen to seperate him from the others after they plucked all the feathers out of his back. The female has us wondering about parentage, she's smaller than most of our ducks but bigger than our Call ducks and pure white but our Pekin died late last summer or early fall of old age, all we can figure is there are a few other ducks out here that are offspring from him and other breeds of duck and the Pekin came thru with her as the more dominate gene.

I started to put the incubators away for the season but I'm giving some thought to getting one back out and hatching a small batch of eggs from our hens just to get the numbers more in balance out here again, I also have a friend that is considering getting some laying hens  so if we were to get the numbers too high I can always send a few her way. I'm more interested to find out if my dismal hatch rate was the eggs or me & the way I was incubating, I can always find homes for any that we don't have room for so that wouldn't be a problem.