Araucana fertility?

[chipens]

No idea where to put this, i'm in nz and have a group of 5 araucanas nz type (not rumpless). one lavender roo and 4 black and lavender hens. They're in a pen with maybe max 10 other mix breed hens and are almost a year old. (haven't checked fertility of other hens, maybe i should?)
I've just started hatching for the season and i'm only getting about 3 out of 12 eggs fertile! not a good rate, i'm unsure why as my orpingtons are about 90% fertile and my barred rocks are usually that too (haven't hatched any yet though), they're about 1 roo to up too 20 odd hens.
i hatched the araucanas from brought hens and had 10 out of 11 eggs hatch.
is my rooster a dud?? or hens? or is there a trick with araucanas breeding?
Any ideas welcome.

 

[Punkybrewster]

If im reading right, you have 1 rooster with 20 hens. Thats too many hens. My suggestion is to pick around 6 to 8 chosen hens and pen them with your rooster.

Wait a couple maybe 4 or 5 days after putting him with them and collect the eggs.

You should see your fertility go up.
Just keep swapping out your hens that you want to hatch from.

 

[willchickeneat]

Smaller ratio = better chance of fertility. Sometimes the rooster likes certain hens and may only mate with those. As suggested above, keep smaller ratio of hen and then swap out other hens after a few days, etc.