How fast will my rooster mate new hens?

[Chikyboy]

I have a rooster who had two hens with him. I got four more hens for him, and I took down the divider today. They seemed pretty chill. I wanna get eggs from them before I move him back into his original coop. How fast will this happen? The rooster is bantam and the hens are LF. If you need anymore details I will tell you. Thanks!

 

[aart]

Why would you need to move him back to a different coop?
Can he 'reach' the target area?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It takes an egg about 25 hours to go through the hen's internal egg making factory. The egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a successful mating takes place on a Monday, then Monday's egg will not be fertilized from that mating. Tuesday's egg might be but don't count on it. Wednesday's egg will be.

A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in his flock every day and not all matings are successful, even if they are both about the same size. So you can never be sure. In your situation I'd start looking for the bulls eye in those eggs. When most have the bulls eye you are good to go.

 

[Chikyboy]

Why would you need to move him back to a different coop?
Can he 'reach' the target area?

He was in another coop before. I put the 5 week old chicks from this year's hatch and turkeys of the same age in his coop. He and two of the hens were being mean, so I put him in that new coop. When the chicks get big enough, I'm gonna swap them.

 

[Chikyboy]

It takes an egg about 25 hours to go through the hen's internal egg making factory. The egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a successful mating takes place on a Monday, then Monday's egg will not be fertilized from that mating. Tuesday's egg might be but don't count on it. Wednesday's egg will be.

A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in his flock every day and not all matings are successful, even if they are both about the same size. So you can never be sure. In your situation I'd start looking for the bulls eye in those eggs. When most have the bulls eye you are good to go.

What time of day do you think that the journey 'begins'? Like, not a specific time, but general.

 

[aart]

What time of day do you think that the journey 'begins'? Like, not a specific time, but general.

Probably within a few hours of an egg being laid...and if it's later in the day it might not start until the next day.

 

[Chikyboy]

Probably within a few hours of an egg being laid...and if it's later in the day it might not start until the next day.

Thanks!

 

[HeritageFan]

I agree w @Ridgerunner
Your best bet is to “sacrifice” the first few eggs for breakfast, if you are most concerned that he breeds the new hens.
Look for the “bullseye” on the yolks.
If you are finding most of the eggs are fertile, you can collect and incubate, or see if the young ladies want to go broody, if that is your goal.

IDK how long chickens lay fertile eggs after being bred... perhaps someone can let us know.
I don’t have chickens.
My Heritage Turkey hens stay in breeding groups with their Tom but I’ve been told that they will lay fertile eggs for about 2 weeks after being bred.
.....I’ve not tested the info I’ve been given. My Toms are gentle with their girls and I haven’t needed to separate the boys thus far. My fertility rates are very high, and my groups are happy together.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What time of day do you think that the journey 'begins'? Like, not a specific time, but general.

That 25 hour journey is an approximation. It may be 24 hours or a littler less, it may be 26 hours or a bit more. 25 hours is sort of an average. Each hen is different.

There are different triggers that tells a hen to release a yolk to start that journey. A poultry science professor that specialized in poultry reproduction said the yolk is released to start that journey after the egg is laid, usually around 20 minutes after. So one trigger is when the egg is laid. But not every hen lays an egg every day, so for many hens this is not a firm trigger. Why would anything to do with chickens be that simple?

Light is another trigger. I'm not exactly sure how that works but something to do with light stops a hen from releasing a yolk so that the egg needs to be laid in the dark. My guess is that it has to do with light intensity but that's just a guess. I'm sure there are other triggers. These triggers don't always work on pullets just starting to lay, sometimes they drop an egg from the roost until they get control of that process. The egg was started at the wrong time.

Sometimes you can track this if you can clearly identify which hen lays which egg. Sometimes a hen will lay an egg every day but get an hour or so later every day. Then when it gets close to the egg being laid late in the day she will skip a day and start the cycle at the beginning of the day. I had a hen, my only green egg laying hen so she was easy to track, that laid an egg by 9:00 AM every day. She was never later than 9:00 AM. She would lay 5 or 6 days in a row then skip a day, then go back to every day by 9:00 AM.