I have some good egg laying hens from a known strain. I have a very low hatch rate. I am wondering if inbreeding could be impacting the hatchability of the Iowa Blues. I will set 28 eggs and maybe get 4-5 to hatch. Then 3-4 survive. Is anyone else having this issue?

Oh and by the way the fertility rate is 80% on these. The form and then quit. Humidity is nearly perfect and temp is 99.5. I have them on an automatic turner. I have hatched Barred Rocks for years with good success. This is new for me

I can only attest to the fact we only had four in our breeding program and the hatch rate has been phenominal. We also are hatching the 2nd generations with a 80 percent rate. The Iowas are hatching better than some of the other mixes we add to the incubator. I have heard that if you hatch fertile eggs from pullets not yet a year old that you can have a lower hatch success. We had one cockerel and three hens but doing great. Now we are up to 15 good breeding stock of Iowas :)

Thanks for your reply. Mine are pullets. I hope to do better next Spring. What do your hens weigh? Roosters?

Our hens are around 5-6 pounds and we are working on breeding in size to our flock. Our roosters are in the 6-7 lb range right now with the smokey Iowa's being the largest of the colors, then the birchens, with silvers being the smallest we have right now. Sometimes the age of the pullet contributes to a low hatch rate. Although we were hatching eggs from 8 to 9 month old pullets with pretty good results. We even would collect them in cartons and leave them on the kitchen counter for up to 3 weeks prior to incubating.