Determiming Fertility

[NoSkiveez]

I'm trying to determine a fertility percentage in one of my pens. Is there a surefire way to determine if an egg is fertile? I'm not attempting to hatch anything right now, so opening eggs is not an issue.

I've heard that fertile eggs will have a white dot on the yolk, but I don't know if that is factual.

Thanks!

 

[gryeyes]

All eggs have the white dot... it's a white "bulls-eye" that indicates fertility. However, ya gotta crack that egg open and pour it out of the shell, so you can't use THAT for hatching. No way to check fertility on specific eggs in the shell.

If you search in BYC for "bulls-eye" you should find a lot of posts about it. Also, in this forum, check the sticky posts and such at the top of this Incubation & Hatching Eggs forum section. There are photos of the bulls-eye there.

 

[rinmpit]

cant u put a lighter up to it in the dark at ten days old and see if theres a chick in it?

 

[Kedreeva]

There is a stickied topic at the top of this forums called "Incubating & Hatching Eggs Important Topic Index - Please Review". Located there are threads with the answers to most people's questions, including this one with accompanying pictures. If you have other questions, you may want to look there first just in case your question has already been answered.

The link to the thread you want is located in the above thread's posts and I will link it to you here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16008


@ Rin: Yes you can put a light (I would suggest not open flame like a lighter, but rather a very bright flashlight or a special candling device) to the eggs, but that is only if you have incubated them. This poster is trying to determine if her roosters are doing their job prior to incubating eggs, which means she will have to crack them open to look for the white dot or white bullseyes.