Do hens store sperm?

[Gerry2011]

If so for how long? I've separated my bcm roo with 2 ameracauna hens from the rest of the flock that includes 2 other roos. How long will it be before the eggs that are laid will be from the bcm roo?

Just found this link that answers my question, plus other interesting things I didn't know about hens and roos.

http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/06_00/Meaningless_sex.shtml

 

[EweSheep]

Yes, for three to four weeks. Best bet to take all the roos out of the hen's place, and reintroduce the roo you want to use back about a month. And wait a few days to a week to make sure the eggs are fertile.

 

[Gerry2011]

Thanks EweSheep.

 

[Carol.in.WV]

Question on this subject:

If a rooster copulates with a hen once is that enough to fertilize her eggs for the next month or do they need to be together longer? I want a particular roo to be the father of this hens next clutch and she is in the house because she just had a brood of only one hatch a little over 4 weeks ago and now she has started laying again but if I put her out it is too cold for her baby and there is a problem with a hawk that has gotten almost all the other hens however I have 8 roosters left.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

I would let them mate for a couple of days, at least.

It wouldn't have been too cold for the hen and chick if you'd let them outside from the beginning, because they'd both be acclimated to the climate. The chick would run outside in the cold just fine, then scoot back under Mama when it got too cold. Now, however, they're both used to the warm inside air and it will be harder on them both to go back outside. Not impossible, mind you--just harder on them. Make sure that they have a good place to get out of the wind and snuggle into some bedding, and they should be OK outside. Keep an eye on them, but chicks are tougher than you think. We have to brood them because we're not the Mama, but when they have a mama hen they do OK in colder weather.

Dont' take my word for it--here's a quote from an earlier thread on hatching chicks in cold weather, from a thread about a year ago:

Your hen will be just fine and so will her chicks. I live in Alaska and have had hens brood chicks in January. It gets well below zero here. I always put them in their own room of the coop too and let them be. You will be amazed at how hardy the little chicks are and they are not dumb they know right where to go to get warmed back up. My first broody hatched eggs in late Sept and it was cold and very rainy, mom was taking her chicks outside in the rain to scratch in the dirt and I thought she was going to kill them getting them wet like that, but they were just fine. They snuggle up into her down and dry off and warm up. Mother nature knows what it is doing, these mom's are smart. Let her do her thing

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some information that might help with this.

It takes about 25 hours for an egg to travel through the hen’s internal egg making factory. Fertilization can only occur in the first few minutes of that journey. So if a mating takes place on a Friday, Friday’s egg will not be fertile. Saturday’s egg might or might not be fertile, depending on timing between the mating and when the egg started its journey. Sunday’s egg is almost certainly fertile.

This is after a mating. Not all roosters mate with each and every hen in the flock every day.

Hens do store sperm in a tube to fertilize the eggs. This tube is right at the start of her internal plumbing related to egg laying. If you notice, right after a mating the hen fluffs up and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm in the tube.

How long does the sperm stay viable after a mating? It varies. The health and vitality of the rooster probably contributes a lot to this, but who knows everything that affects it. Some stay fertile for maybe only 9 days, though most people use two weeks and this usually works out. Some have been known to stay fertile for over three weeks. If you want to be absolutely definitely certain, wait four weeks. A lot of people wait three weeks and it usually works out.

There is something else working on favor of not waiting quite so long. That tube that stores the sperm works on a last in – first out basis. The last rooster that successfully mates with the hen is probably going to be the one that fertilizes the egg, at least until his sperm is used up. The flaw with counting on this is that I don’t know how often the rooster has to mate with the hen to make sure his sperm is not used up.