are first eggs fertile?

[da1goth2]

Hi everyone, so my quail started laying a few days ago, and i was wondering if the first eggs are fertile or not? My hens have always lived with a roo and still do and i have seen them mate many times. I just made an incubator and decided to incubate two of the eggs so i just wanted to know if its worth doing or should i wait a while?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The eggs should be fertile by the second or third egg. There are good reasons not to incubate the early ones though. They're too small for the embryo and there isn't enough nutrition to produce healthy birds. Also young males don't always produce the best offspring.

 

[da1goth2]

I ate the 1st and 2nd egg and have put the 3rd and 4th eggs into my incubator this morning. My male is pretty young so i spose i'll wait a while before attempting to hatch anymore. I'm not expecting these two eggs to hatch really mainly because i don't have a proper incubator and only two eggs. Thanks for answering my question

 

[elmendorfquail]

Hi everyone, so my quail started laying a few days ago, and i was wondering if the first eggs are fertile or not? My hens have always lived with a roo and still do and i have seen them mate many times. I just made an incubator and decided to incubate two of the eggs so i just wanted to know if its worth doing or should i wait a while?

I have quite a few quail and I always assume that all the eggs are fertile. I make sure that I have enough males to service all the girls because you may have a bad hatch or none if you only have one male. I have a couple of table top bators that work very well for me and they hold 120 eggs each in the turners. Note: if you don't have automatic turners you will have to turn the eggs by hand 4 to 5 times a day for 14 days and that gets really old after awhile. I store my eggs in a fridge at 60 degrees until I get enough to fill my turners and I always store them for no longer than 3 weeks ... Hope this all helps... Jay

 

[darajosami]

I have quite a few quail and I always assume that all the eggs are fertile. I make sure that I have enough males to service all the girls because you may have a bad hatch or none if you only have one male. I have a couple of table top bators that work very well for me and they hold 120 eggs each in the turners. Note: if you don't have automatic turners you will have to turn the eggs by hand 4 to 5 times a day for 14 days and that gets really old after awhile. I store my eggs in a fridge at 60 degrees until I get enough to fill my turners and I always store them for no longer than 3 weeks ... Hope this all helps... Jay

Sorry to butt in, but how many hens should one rooster be able to service? I have 10 brown leghorn bantams to one brown leghorn bantam rooster.

 

[HowieNZ]

Five Hens to one Roo is a good ratio.

 

[darajosami]

Five Hens to one Roo is a good ratio.

Hmmm looks like I need to look for another roo. Is there any way of knowing if there fertile without breaking them? I cant watch hens as they are in lockdown as just gt them and apparently only three of them are laying at the moment so researching about signs of about to lay

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I think he's talking about quail.
1:10 is a good ratio for leghorns. Actually you can even go to 14 or 15. I wouldn't have more than 1 leghorn rooster with 10 hens.

 

[dc3085]

It's always a good idea to let hens lay two weeks worth of eggs before incubating if they are just starting to lay for the first time or for the new year.

 

[burny]

My hen just laid her first 2 eggs today

. It's fertile but massive is that normal ?