Breeding poultry without records turns into guesswork within a single season: eggs from three pens look identical in the incubator, and by hatching day nobody can say with confidence which cock fathered which chicks. A breeding and hatching log fixes parentage, dates and results to each batch while they are still known, which is the only moment they can be fixed at all.
Begin with the pairing
Open a record for each breeding group before the first egg is set: which cock is running with which hens, the date they went together, and the date the group was separated or changed. Note the age and condition of the birds if you know them, because fertility trouble later in the season often traces back to an ageing cock or hens passing their best laying weeks. If you swap a cock mid-season, close the old entry and start a new one. A single line quietly altered later is how doubtful parentage creeps into a breeding programme and stays there.
The setting entry
For every batch of eggs, write the date set, how many eggs, and which pen they came from — marked on the shell in pencil as the eggs are collected, because memory at the incubator door is not a system. Note where the batch is being hatched: your own incubator, a broody hen, or another keeper's machine, since hatch results only compare fairly within the same method. Add the expected hatch date so the hatch is planned for rather than discovered, and leave the result columns empty until candling and hatching fill them in. A batch with no pen marked on it should not go into the machine at all.
Candling and the hatch itself
Record candling results by batch — how many eggs were fertile, how many were cleared out, and anything odd such as development stopping early. At hatching, count what came out, note any chicks that needed help or hatched well after the rest, and record obvious defects straight away, factually and without sentiment. These figures are the honest scorecard of the pairing. A pen that sets forty eggs and hatches thirty strong chicks is telling you something quite different from a pen that sets forty and hatches twelve, and without the log both blur into a vague memory of having had some chicks that year.
Chick outcomes and next season's decisions
Follow each batch one step further: how many chicks were reared to sorting age, and which you kept back for breeding. Write the sire and dam group onto the kept birds' own records, so next generation's pairings avoid close breeding by accident rather than by luck. At the end of the season the log lets you compare pens on evidence — fertility, hatchability and chick quality together — and decide which groupings to repeat, which cock to replace, and which hens have earned another year in the breeding pen.
All of that decision-making depends on the record surviving the season intact and findable, and KinsLe's Pet Passport keeps records like these together in one portable packet, so your pairings, settings and hatch results stay organised alongside the rest of the flock's details.