Fertile or not?

[Ariel301]

Is there a trick anyone knows for telling if eggs are fertile without cracking them? I'm in the mood to try hatching, and I can get large amounts of cheap eggs from a friend, but she only has 3 roosters with 120 hens, so she doesn't think there will be many fertile ones. I've cracked a few for breakfast and a lot of them look fertile to me. It just seems such a waste to not know if an egg is fertile until you either crack it for eating or leave it in the incubator long enough that it is no longer good for eating. It would be nice if there was a way to tell before incubating, but I've never heard of one.

 

[midget_farms]

The only way to tell for sure is to set them. Then on day 5 or 6 you candle them & can usually see veins or other development.

 

[seminolewind]

Crack them open, look for the dot or bullseye, then store the egg in a container. Easy

 

[Ariel301]

I'm familiar with both of those. I was just wishfully thinking maybe someone had a trick for figuring out whether they were fertile without cracking or setting them. I always feel sort of bad when I break a fertile egg for breakfast (not really, just I'm seriously needing some new chicks lol) and it seems such a waste to throw out a lot of eggs I can't eat after a few days in the incubator because they never did anything. I hate being wasteful. I've never heard of a method, but I thought I'd give it a try.

 

[Emmalion]

scramble them up and feed them to your birds. No need to waste them

 

[chinadollgreen]

You can also candle them and if they porous they are not fertile.

 

[horseyjess]

Quote:
I dont agree with this!! If porous they may not develop right but with my Welsummer hatch I had 2 extremely porous looking eggs develop and hatch!!

 

[ScissorChick]

Quote:
I dont agree with this!! If porous they may not develop right but with my Welsumer hatch I had 2 extremely porous looking eggs develop and hatch!!

I do not agree with it either. Porous eggs are caused by problems with your hens.

(theres a whole list of 'problems' it could be) Porous eggs CAN be fertile. If you

crack one egg, and if it's fertile, theres a good chance all the rest are, aswell. Scramble

the cracked egg and feed it to the chickens, or dogs ** If you have any ** So that the

egg is not wasted. It's as easy at that.

-ScissorChick

 

[f8thnjc]

I have a rather porous egg right now in the bator that I thought I would try and see what it would do....it is growing just like the rest. Maybe it won't make it all the way, but we'll see. It is definitely fertile.

 

[3forfree]

any pics of a pourous egg, I've got dark brown eggs in my homemade bator right now, and having a hard time candling them and would like to see what a pourous egg looks like. Thanks.