Breeding

[trek]

What breeds of chickens can cross breed? I have a Silkie and Ameracauna Rooster.

3 Red Star, 1 "Bantam" (she looks sort of like a pigeon) and 2 Ameracauna Hens.


The Bantam recently hatched and mothered a baby Silkie.

Recently, I'm pretty sure, a racoon, took the chick and the Silkie hen.


The baby silkie was the only egg that hatched. I had 2 nests of about 12 eggs and only the one egg hatched. The Silkie hen was very broody and sat day in and day out. The other "Bantam" hen, was on and off. Both nests had some of each hens eggs.
I have never seen one of the Red Star hens want to sit. They are 1-1/2 yrs. old and the Ameracauna's are not laying yet, 4 month old.

Just wondering now, if there is a possibility of any chicks hatching from the flock I have left.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Any breed rooster can mate with and father chicks with any hen. Breed is a manmade thing, chickens just understand “Me Tarzan, you Jane”.

Major differences in size can sometimes create problems, it may be hard for the rooster to hit the target with a hen of greatly different size but any of your eggs could be fertile and could hatch. I don’t know what happened in your incubation. It sounds like you may have had more eggs than those hens could cover. You usually don’t get good hatches that way. Or maybe you had a staggered hatch. All eggs need to be marked and started at the same time with any new eggs removed daily. There is not enough information to know why you did not have a good hatch, but it was probably not a fertility problem. Did you open the unhatched eggs to see if they started to develop?

 

[trek]

Thank you !! It did seem like a silly question, but I had to ask.

This is only my second season keeping chickens. I had left the "small" eggs in the nest for fun. And what fun it was when I actually found a baby chick one day in May.

I did check the other eggs and no, they were not fertile.

I will look further into hatching. When I decided to get some chicks, it was mainly for eggs. Now I am hooked on chicks and ready to explore more breeds and hatching.

 

[Gray Farms]

Hatching trouble is almost always in the incubation "human or hen". Some hens will diligently set eggs like there lives depend on it. And all the while not turn them thus no chicks, even though eggs were fertile.