Crippled Rooster - Fertile Eggs or Not?

[JohnsonHomested]

So here's the deal: we have 15 hens and 1 rooster. Rudy dislocated one of his hips at around 4 months of age and he has walked with a limp ever since. Because of that he doesn't mount his hens as often as other roosters I've had experience with. We HAVE caught him "doing the deed" every so often although he seems very unsteady and nearly falls off the hen every time.

My question is this: we have a VERY broody Orpington who is determined to sit on some eggs. Is it even worth letting her try when we're not sure all the eggs are fertilized? If we candle her eggs, how soon should we see development that would indicate a fertilized egg??

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[brahmabreeder]

I would just put them under her and see. Either way you are guaranteed not to get 100% fertility with that many hens and a handicapped rooster. About a week in is when you can start culling the eggs. I can usually tell at about four days but it took time before I was confident enough to cull that early.

 

[cmfarm]

How did he dislocate his hip? If he has weak genes I don't think I would.

 

[JohnsonHomested]

Thanks! I gave her a few more eggs and she happily tucked them in. I guess we'll see!

The injury was due to cramped living conditions the first few months of his life. We were in the process of building a coop and got held up by an overzealous code enforcement officer (you can read the story on our coop construction post) so the chickens were in too small a space for too long. He was fine one day and limping the next so it wasn't a gradual change.

 

[JohnsonHomested]

Well, she's still setting! Hatch Day should be April 30th if the eggs survive. One egg already met its demise, not sure how but the other hens keep stealing her nestbox to lay their eggs. We're considering moving her to a private box but we wanted to see if she'd stay on her eggs long term before we went to that trouble. Also, when cooking up some eggs for dinner tonight we noted that all four of them were fertilized so it seems Rudy isn't as much of a dud as we thought! He must just be a real private dude.

 

[JohnsonHomested]

The eggs are developing but when we tried to move the broody, she stopped setting. It's only been about 4-6 hours...how long can the eggs go? I was going to give her a few more hours to see if she'd calm down and sit, but how long can I wait??