A few hatching questions...

[chicken4prez]

Hi there!

I will be hatching in late spring and I have a few questions on hatching. :-D These might be completely stupid to you all but....

1. The eggs I will be hatching will hopefully be 100% Mille Fleur d'Uccles. The hen will have her own hatching spot inside our coop but if I let her free range in the day will my 2 EE roos be able to mate her successfully and I will accidentally hatch d'Uccle x EE? Because I don't want that to happen.


2. Like I said if my hen does end up hatching EE x d'Uccle chicks will inside the egg since EEs are a lot bigger than the bantam hen will there be any struggles of if the chick gets the EE size inside the d'Uccle egg? That was so confusing to put on text so please excuse me if that doesn't make any sense.

Anyway there's my silly questions.

 

[TheKindaFarmGal]

So, a hen's eggs can and most likely will be fertile for 2-3 weeks after mating. When you're wanting to have a certain father, the hens need to be separated from other roosters for about 4 weeks to be on the safe side. You can keep them with the rooster you want to breed them for that time, but you won't be able to be certain of the chicks you'll get until at least 3 weeks apart from other roosters, though there would still be a better chance you'll get pure D'uccles.

If you have a broody she won't be laying, so you don't need to worry about her mating with other roosters when she takes her daily break from the nest. A smart rooster won't mess with a broody anyway.

No, you won't have any problems like that. The size of the parents doesn't matter at all when it comes to chick size in egg.

Hope everything goes well! Please update and feel free to ask any more questions.

 

[chicken4prez]

Ok good to know!

Haha!

Thank you!

I will.