explain the whole fertalized egg thing to me ..

[Wendy'sChicksRock]

ok, not to be a total newbie but I was wondering how this all works.Once they mate how many eggs will she lay that are fertile? Is it a one egg per
rendezvous or will she lay several over a period of time? I want to send my broody silkie over to my friends to see if we can give her some eggs to hatch, she seems set on being a mom and I feel bad for her.Will she mate with him if she is already broody or should i just get some eggs from my friend and let her hatch those?

thanx's a bunch

 

[ADozenGirlz]

Wendy'sChicksRock :

ok, not to be a total newbie but I was wondering how this all works.Once they mate how many eggs will she lay that are fertile? Is it a one egg per
rendezvous or will she lay several over a period of time? I want to send my broody silkie over to my friends to see if we can give her some eggs to hatch, she seems set on being a mom and I feel bad for her.Will she mate with him if she is already broody or should i just get some eggs from my friend and let her hatch those?

thanx's a bunch

My understanding is that one mating event should produce fertile eggs for about 2-3 weeks. She will mate with a rooster if the rooster decides to mate with her, being broody has nothing to do with it. If you have a broody who is ready to sit and a friend with fertile eggs that you'd like to hatch AND you don't care who the mama is, by all means, use your friend's hen's eggs!​

 

[Wendy'sChicksRock]

she also has silkies , maybe Ill just do that sure seems easier to me. If she has been sitting for a week already will she continue to sit long enought to hatch some chicks or do they have a egg timer ( lol ) that will go off in not quite enough time to hatch them? ahhh so many questions... I have tried to break her for the last 3 days and finally gave up today.. I even locked her out of the coop and she just paced and screamed at me all day....

 

[ADozenGirlz]

Wendy'sChicksRock :

she also has silkies , maybe Ill just do that sure seems easier to me. If she has been sitting for a week already will she continue to sit long enought to hatch some chicks or do they have a egg timer ( lol ) that will go off in not quite enough time to hatch them? ahhh so many questions... I have tried to break her for the last 3 days and finally gave up today.. I even locked her out of the coop and she just paced and screamed at me all day....

They'll usually sit until they hatch some chicks or until some chicks magically appear from under them (in the morning, after you put them under her at night!).
Silkies are persistent broodies and are WONDERFUL mamas. My Silkie, Freida, at 12 months old had never laid an egg until after she brooded out a chick (a Silver Spangled Hamburg chick at that!).
Here's my Freida, who was the first broody I used to hatch eggs via hen (she hatched one hen and I put the other guy under her a week later. He was a bator baby and she took him in with no questions asked!):

Here's the thread I started when she was brooding if you're interested (as I had 7 in the bator and 5 under her): https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=367974

Here's Freida and her SSH baby this week. NO family resemblance!

 

[Wendy'sChicksRock]

awwwwwwwwww so darn cute...one more question for ya. Will i need to seperate her from the rest of the hens while she is hatching her eggs? She is THE BOSS of the coop and they all stay away from her anyways.. Small and mighty my DH says.. )

 

[Wendy'sChicksRock]

oh and here is my broody girl....

telling me to buzzzz off

 

[mboreham1]

I have a belgian d'uccle bantam, she is a consistent broody, i dont have a rooster (only to not annoy the neighbors) so each time she goes broody, i let her sit for a week or so, then i shove a couple babies under her at night, she is in the coop with all the other birds, she picks the laying box she wants to inhabit and i decide which new breed i want to add to the flock, this time it was an EE and golden sex link, last time it was a barred rock and RIR. So, the babies were under their surrogate mom, at 3 or 4 days old, in with other birds ranging from 5 months to 18 months old. The d'uccle was/is certainly not head of the pecking order but the others seem to steer clear when puffed up when they were too close!

Here's the deal, momma's will be momma's regardless of breed, i believe in the toughness of the bird, people around here are very cautious in general when it comes to their birds (remember chickens survive around the world wild, with nothing to eat apart from what they find and nothing sterile to drink, but they survive!)

The babies are now 7 weeks old, have never been in my house, never had a heat lamp, have had "protected" access to chicken starter up to about 2 weeks old (i partion off the laying box, with a piece of card board, when they were big enough to fly over, they did, i did make sure they got back under momma at night, after 1 day, they found their way back, when they didnt, momma moved and sat on them on the floor in the back of the coop, now they all roost on the roof rafters, they are the same size as momma and they still try and get under her! They now get to eat their starter in with the other birds when i throw a scoop along with scratch into the run in the morning, they are very healthy, very inquisative and momma has done an amazing job at showing them the ropes around the place.

So, let her mate with the rooster or shove a couple babies under her at night, sit back and marvel at your silkies mothering skills, dont worry too much, momma will protect the babies even to her own detriment, my d'uccle took on my beagle to protect her babies....... and won!

 

[elmo]

If your hen is broody, she isn't laying eggs. So sending her over to a rooster won't result in fertilized eggs until she starts laying again. I believe the sperm from a mating can fertilize eggs laid up to two weeks after the mating, though.

The simplest thing for you to do is to put fertilized eggs under your broody and sit back and let her do the rest.

 

[aunt sissy]

This was all very great information. I also have a VERY newbie question that I have been wondering about for some time. This is our first year with chickens and got a rooster with our girls. We wanted to try all different breeds to see which one we liked the best. Our rooster was a Speckled Sussex, so if he were to have bred with the rest of our girls would we have a bunch of half breeds? This seems like a really stupid question but I know a lot of people with different types of chickens and only one rooster.