Chicken birds and the bees

[horsesNchicks]

I have 18 hens and 2, 6 month old roosters. Up till now they have been all together. I want fertile eggs from one breed and am wondering how long I have to separate the breed I want to know the right rooster covered the desired hens. TIA

 

[azygous]

If I understand your question correctly, you want to know how long the hens need to be accessed by the rooster you wish to fertilize the hens of his specific breed and how long the other rooster needs to be kept clear of them.

First of all, six months is too young to expect quality sperm and "accuracy" in performance. It would be best to wait a few more months so you know he's got a good sperm count and has had time to perfect his technique to insure hitting the target. You'd be surprise at how often a young, inexperienced cockerel comes no where close to depositing his contribution anywhere near the right place.

Sperm can last up to two weeks from one accurate mating event. Therefore, it's more important to keep the other cockerel well away from the hens for several weeks before and after the period during which the chosen one is operating if you want to be certain of getting the correct breed chicks.

 

[horsesNchicks]

Thank you. That is exactly what I was asking lol

 

[aart]

Sperm can last up to two weeks from one accurate mating event. Therefore, it's more important to keep the other cockerel well away from the hens for several weeks before and after the period during which the chosen one is operating if you want to be certain of getting the correct breed chicks.

Birds should be totally physically separated....4 weeks to be absolutely sure.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

To be absolutely, positively, 100% sure of the paternity of your chicks the hen or hens that you intend to breed should be sequestered with the intended daddy of your chicks until said hen has laid a clutch of eggs and has began sitting. Then she is broken from wanting to raise chicks and her new eggs are saved. If you aren't that obsessed with chickens' facts of life then the advise offered by azygous & aart is a pretty good starting place. Do be advised that the cockerel should be at least 8 months old or older before you can expect quality chicks from him. Use the intervening time to feed a complete breeder chow or ration to both the male and female chicken or chickens, and above all spend the small price to get a copy of Janet Stromberg's book on Incubation. When breeding fluffy bottomed birds it is a good idea to cut back the fluff or down around the vent of both the hen and rooster. This is one area where a cockerel's accuracy comes into play because during chicken sex there is no penetration. Also there is some conjecture that a hen is able to reject the semen of roosters that she feels are inferior or finds objectionable. Young cockerels fall into both categories.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Just to be clear I'll go about it this way. It takes about 25 hours for an egg to go through the hen's internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a successful mating takes place on Monday, Monday's egg will not be fertile. Tuesday's egg might be but don't count on it. Wednesday's egg will be fertile. Notice that this is after a successful mating. A rooster does not necessarily mate with every hen in the flock every day, but he does not have to.

In the last part of the mating act the rooster hops off. His part is done. The hen then stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This gets the sperm in a container near the point the egg starts it's internal journey. That sperm can stay viable in that container from 9 days to over three weeks. Most of us use two weeks as the length of time it stays viable and get pretty good results. A lot of people use a three week window for how long they need to clean out a hen before they are assured the new rooster will be the father. In isolated cases the sperm has lasted over three weeks so to be 100% sure four weeks is better.

it sounds like you are not dealing with hens and roosters but instead have pullets and cockerels. There are some considerations there. I sometimes incubate a pullet's first eggs. They can hatch. But I find my hatch rate is a little lower and the chicks have a higher mortality rate than if the eggs are from pullets or hens that have been laying a while. An egg has to be put together about perfectly to hatch a healthy chick. When pullets first start to lay they can take a while to get all the kinks out of their internal egg making factory. Those kinks can be more than just the weird things that are noticeable. The first eggs are small also compared to what they will be a month later. The chicks that do hatch out of them are pretty small and maybe a bit weaker. I still set pullet eggs and sometimes get some good results but I find waiting until the pullet has been laying for a month at least before I incubate eggs gives me a much better hatch.

Same type of thing with cockerels. The young ones are not perfect but they can be energetic. They only have to hit the target once every two weeks anyway. If your pullets are already laying and your cockerels are already trying to mate, I'd think if you wait three to four weeks for the sperm to clear up you will be good to go. You might possibly get marginally better results in hatch rate and survivability if you wait a bit longer but the difference is not worth the wait to me. From what I've seen it is insignificant.