I've finally reached the point where people are interested in hatching eggs from my silkies, but I've been having pretty terrible fertility with them this year and I don't feel comfortable selling eggs that will likely have a very bad hatch rate.
This year I've been having issues with fertility in my silkies. In the first hatch I think I incubated at least 10 eggs and only 2 developed and hatched. In the second hatch I had 5 of my silkie eggs and none developed. The next hatch I got 4 out of 10 eggs. In the very last hatch I had 11 or more eggs and only 3 developed and hatched. So I've hatched 9 out of at least 36 eggs.
I did have a crappy incubator in the first hatch, so that may be a reason I had such poor results (had more than 10 fertilized eggs from a breeder and only 1 hatched. Many didn't develop all the way, likely due to temperature being too low). The second hatch was in a brand new Brinsea incubator. I got a 100% hatch rate in silkie eggs from a breeder with the Brinsea. The last two were under broody hens.
How could I increase the fertility in them? I didn't trim the fluff around their butts this year. My rooster is from completely different lines than my hens, except one hen who is from the same breeder, but I know for a fact that 4 if not 6 out of the 9 chicks are hers, so I don't think inbreeding would be the cause of this issue. I barely ever see my rooster mounting the hens. I've heard about crest size getting in the way sometimes, but my rooster does fine with my non-silkie hens and the hen with the biggest crest is the same one that had 4-6 chicks this year. The rest have smaller crests. Maybe my rooster would be favoring the smooth feathered non-silkie hens and just not giving the silkies enough attention? I will be separating those into a separate pen next spring. Could it be the hens don't like him or something? I will be getting a new rooster for the next chick season.
This year I've been having issues with fertility in my silkies. In the first hatch I think I incubated at least 10 eggs and only 2 developed and hatched. In the second hatch I had 5 of my silkie eggs and none developed. The next hatch I got 4 out of 10 eggs. In the very last hatch I had 11 or more eggs and only 3 developed and hatched. So I've hatched 9 out of at least 36 eggs.
I did have a crappy incubator in the first hatch, so that may be a reason I had such poor results (had more than 10 fertilized eggs from a breeder and only 1 hatched. Many didn't develop all the way, likely due to temperature being too low). The second hatch was in a brand new Brinsea incubator. I got a 100% hatch rate in silkie eggs from a breeder with the Brinsea. The last two were under broody hens.
How could I increase the fertility in them? I didn't trim the fluff around their butts this year. My rooster is from completely different lines than my hens, except one hen who is from the same breeder, but I know for a fact that 4 if not 6 out of the 9 chicks are hers, so I don't think inbreeding would be the cause of this issue. I barely ever see my rooster mounting the hens. I've heard about crest size getting in the way sometimes, but my rooster does fine with my non-silkie hens and the hen with the biggest crest is the same one that had 4-6 chicks this year. The rest have smaller crests. Maybe my rooster would be favoring the smooth feathered non-silkie hens and just not giving the silkies enough attention? I will be separating those into a separate pen next spring. Could it be the hens don't like him or something? I will be getting a new rooster for the next chick season.
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