2 Sterile roo's?

[cornfedhogedito]

Is it possible for roo's to be sterile? I have 2 roo's and they are mating with the ladies. My neighbor has a hen that has been broody and sitting on 4 eggs now started with 6. 2 went bad, 2 are clear and 2 are black (when candling). She has been sitting 30 days on the 4 eggs and not a peep. We stuck 6 fresh eggs (3 days old) under her 4 days ago.

Is it "normal" to not have any hatch out of 6 eggs? just seems odd to have a complete failure with natural chicken care. I could except it if we tried to hatch in an incubator. But not with nature handling the job.

Thanks for the help

 

[Free Feather]

They could have been infected if the nest or the eggs were dirty, or the hen could have gotten up to eat on hatch days, or a hundred other things could have went wrong. How many hens are there in with the roosters, and how old is everyone?

 

[Mrs. K]

I assume that you are also eating some of these eggs. Take a look for the bulls eye. If there is no bulls eye, then they are not fertile and will not grow into chicks. I check mine all the time. Check on here there are some excellent pictures to get you started.

A hen sitting on chicks should hatch in 20-21 days. 30 days is WAY past go. I would hesitate asking her to brood again, or rather continue brooding on eggs. If you want chicks, order or get some day old chicks and get them under her ASAP. Otherwise, I would recommend breaking the broody cycle.

Hens generally do not get up often when brooding eggs, they don't eat often and generally loose weight while brooding. Once they have chicks, they are up off the nests, getting those babies fed and eating and drinking too, and quickly recover their lost weight. Encouraging brooding for long periods of time, can really pull down the birds overall health.

Mrs K

 

[cornfedhogedito]

Lol yes definitely eating eggs and have seen the bulls eye. I will talk with my neighbor and see what they want to do. We both have never incubated or let the hens hatch the eggs and wanted to let our grandchildren see the fun!

The nest box was changed when they put the eggs under her. The eggs were clean, cleaned with a dry paper towel and less than 10 days old.

The eggs were from the original flock we started with so they are just over a year old and serviced by 2 roo's. We have 6 hens and 2 roo's. 2 hens are 4years old 2 are just over a year and the last 2 are 9 months. The roo's are just over a year and 9 months. My hens haven't gone broody.

My neighbor s 2 hens are about 8 months. I have been watching her and have only seen her off the nest once drinking water. Its been in the 90's. We did have a few days of 100+ degrees for 3 days about mid way through the process. She never seemed to move off them.

Anyway thanks for the pointers and I will let my neighbor know what you all said. After all it is his hen, mine just donated the "fertile" eggs!

 

[Free Feather]

Completely off topic, but is your username supposed to be separate words? I am hurting my brain trying to figure out how to break up the hogedito part @cornfedhogedito

 

[dekel18042]

I only tried hatching once in hot weather and they were eggs driven to me (not shipped) and not one even started to develop so perhaps there is truth in what I have just posted.

 

[Free Feather]

Same goes for really cold weather, especially if frostbite is thrown into the equation.

 

[dekel18042]

Same goes for really cold weather, especially if frostbite is thrown into the equation.

I've hatched my own eggs in Jan, Feb, April and June, and July. We get very cold weather in the winter, can go under 0*, and I get excellent hatch rates, but I collect my eggs several times a day.
I've even pulled eggs from the refrigerator and after allowing them to reach room temperature have thrown them into the incubator and they hatched,

 

[cornfedhogedito]

central valley CA. Might be something to the temperature part. But the eggs weren't subjected to temps much over 84 degrees both outside in the coop and house. We keep them on the counter temp swings from 60's to 84 when I turn on the a/c and drop the temp to 75!

Haha, I'm slow today! I could see that, the ladies are hot anyway but the air temp being near body temp it might just help to destoy the fertility.

 

[cornfedhogedito]

Completely off topic, but is your username supposed to be separate words? I am hurting my brain trying to figure out how to break up the hogedito part @cornfedhogedito

I go by Cornfed! But someone had that already so I used my email! Which is cornfedhogeditor. So if you want to get technical it would be broke up like this!...Cornfed hog editor.

Hope that helps your head out!