Are they fertile?

[chick123600]

Okay all my hens lay eggs including my guineas and my duck.

I have 5 roosters, 3 drakes, and 2 cocks.

Even with all those boys, can I be for sure that all the eggs are fertile?

If not, all my girls lay brown eggs, except for the duck and one hen that isn't laying right now (she's broody).

I don't want to waste time putting any in the incubator unless I can tell that they are fertile.

 

[chicklover16]

Candle they eggs, if they light up like a globe then they are infertile.

 

[nurse_turtle]

You can check fertility by opening the eggs and looking for the white 'bullseye' on the yolk which is the blastocyst and is fertile. You can put them under your broody and candle them at day 4-5 and look for that tiny red dot with vessels coming from it.

 

[DirtCreature]

OR if you don't want to candle, or cant... and don't want to waste eggs opening them and looking for something.... (which i could never figure out, but that's my fault LOL)

I think you can "float test" them. put it in the search bar at the top of the site and there should be several threads about it.

 

[jruhle]

I only had 1 rooster with 27 hens and wouldn't ya know it, every darn egg was fertile and I hatched around 50 chicks one year. That was one horny rooster!!!

 

[DirtCreature]

I only had 1 rooster with 27 hens and wouldn't ya know it, every darn egg was fertile and I hatched around 50 chicks one year. That was one horny rooster!!!

 

[chick123600]

She's a tiny hen and has 14 eggs under her right now, I just checked what day it was and today is day ten, so I went outside to candle them.

I checked all of them, and couldn't see anything. So I busted two chicken and two guinea eggs. She has at least one of everyone's eggs under her. (that was her choice) She now has three guinea eggs left. and the rest are chicken eggs. Only one guinea egg looked like it was supposed to. but these eggs were all laid before I got new males. I only had two roosters and the drakes when these were laid. So I'm not sure how they would turn out now.