Fertility and Roosters

[atm21]

Something to help you with your planning. It takes an egg about 25 hours to make its way through the hen’s internal egg making factory. It can only be fertilized during the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a successful mating takes place on a Sunday, Sunday’s egg is not fertile from that mating. Monday’s egg might be but don’t count on it. Tuesday’s egg will be fertile. That timing is pretty specific.

The last part of the mating act is after the rooster hops off the hen stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake gets the sperm into a special container inside the hen near where the egg starts that journey. That sperm normally stays effective for anywhere from 9 days to over three weeks. Most of us count on two weeks. There have been cases where a hen laid a fertile egg over three weeks after the rooster was gone, but it’s fairly rare. Most people use three weeks as a pretty safe length of time for that sperm to clear out. A month can be a long wait.

As mentioned a rooster does not usually mate with every hen in the flock every day. In a normal flock situation he doesn’t have to, once every two weeks is enough. You are not in that situation though. How often he mates and with which hens will depend on different things. Part of it is how vigorous the rooster is. Some roosters have no problems keeping over 20 hens fertile. Some may struggle to keep 4 hens fertile. Age can be a factor. Younger roosters can be more vigorous than older roosters.

Flock dynamics has a lot to do with it. A rooster needs to be dominant enough that the hens accept him as flock master. Otherwise they may run away when he dances instead of squatting. Not all roosters chase them down and force the issue.

Roosters do not carry a little black book to keep track. “Oh, I haven’t mated her for a couple of weeks, it’s time”. It’s a lot of opportunity. If the flock splits up where some hens stay with the rooster while others avoid him, certain ones are more likely to be bred.

In other words there is no guarantee a rooster will even keep all hens fertile, let alone how long it takes for him to fertilize the flock to start with.

The way I understand it, you have two roosters and 12 hens you want to hatch eggs from. You want the chicks to be about the same age. You feel you can collect enough eggs from 12 hens in two days from each rooster.

My suggestion would be to split the hens into two groups of six each. Put each group with one rooster. After the appropriate amount of time, collect eggs over a 4 or 5 day period to hatch. That way the chicks will be exactly the same age, not just close together. One rooster is more likely to have all eggs fertile with six hens than 12. I don’t know if you have one incubator or two, but either way you can keep the chicks separated at hatch. We can discuss that if you wish. If you only have one incubator, do you want a staggered hatch?

I don’t know all your goals or whether this could work for you (you may not want to split the hens) but it seems it would give you more control over the situation that waiting and hoping the second rooster does his job in a reasonable amount of time. I think you are kind of putting all your eggs in one basket if you count on days 13 and 14 to be good days for egg laying, plus on occasion the sperm may not be as viable then as sooner in the cycle.

Thank you! So much great info and ideas I have 1 incubator and would love them to be as close as possible all the chicks that is. So you're saying have two groups of 6 and one rooster each? And then rotate the roosters? So have two groups separated by two weeks? How long can they stay viable if I collect eggs and wait to incubate? I have a crawl space to store them in to wait to incubate but for how many days?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t know why you want chicks from 12 hens with both roosters. I don’t know what is special about those 12 hens. My thought was to put one rooster with 6 (or more) hens and never rotate them. Instead of collecting eggs for two days, collect them for four days, you’ll get the same number of eggs to hatch. You could collect for longer if you wanted to. I don’t know why the chicks need to be about the same age, but this way they would all hatch together.

How long you can store eggs to hatch after they are laid is an interesting topic. There is not a magic number of days that if you store them this long they are all great but one day longer and none will hatch. The longer they are stored the less likely they are to hatch. The better the conditions they are stored in the longer they are viable.

When a hen hides a nest and lays eggs to make a clutch she may have eggs more than two weeks old and still get them to hatch. A lot of that depends on the conditions the eggs are stored in. The perfect temperature to store hatching eggs is around 55 degrees F. A lot of us don’t have anything like that to store them, so we do the best we can. The longer an egg is stored the more moisture is lost through the porous shell during storage. So it helps if the humidity is pretty high when you are storing them. Temperatures fluctuating from warm to cool is not good, the temperature needs to stay pretty stable. Eggs stored for incubation don’t have to be turned the first few days but after a few days it can really help. Most people consider turning 3 times a day as a minimum, though more frequent turning helps. You need to store the eggs pointy side down or at least laying on their side so the air cell stays on the fat end. You don’t want it moving or the chick can’t find it and dies because it can’t internal pip.

A broody hen hiding a nest doesn’t do any of this. The temperature and humidity is what it is. Usually her nest is in the shade and maybe even on the ground so temperatures and maybe humidity are probably more stable than you’d think. She probably turns the eggs when she lays a new egg once a day. The eggs naturally tilt a bit fat side up when they are pretty flat. Those broody hens still get the eggs to hatch better than we can when we store them in perfect conditions. It’s one of those miracles of nature.

I don’t have a perfect place to store the eggs. I keep them in a spare bedroom so they are at house temperature (low to upper 70’s depending on time of year but pretty stable) and humidity, usually pretty low humidity. I put them in the turner from my incubator on top of a dresser so they are constantly turned. Even under these less than ideal conditions I regularly store eggs a week and get good hatches. I’ve never tried to store them longer than a week so I don’t know how long I could really go. Just do the best you reasonably can.

A staggered hatch is when you have eggs that are started at different times so they hatch at different times. Some people do this regularly but usually they have two incubators and use one as a hatcher. Some problems with using one incubator for staggered hatches is how do you manage turning and humidity for eggs on different schedules. Those are a pain but people have some techniques to do it.

To me the big problem with this is that when the eggs hatch, they make a mess. The chicks are wet and kind of slimy, they can spread that mess everywhere as they crawl around, even over the other eggs. Even worse, the chick start pooping shortly after hatch. You have that “afterbirth” plus poop in a humid incubator at the perfect temperature for bacteria to grow. Within three days that incubator is probably stinking to high heaven. That’s not a healthy environment for the later eggs to hatch and around here would lead to divorce proceedings. Again there are techniques to handle this but why make hatching that hard on yourself? I avoid staggered hatches with a passion. If you get a second incubator these problems pretty much go away though.

I don’t know what your roosters or hens look like, if you can tell the chicks from different roosters at hatch or even later. If you can, life will be a easier. But if you can’t and you are using one incubator to hatch the eggs together, you can still handle it. Mark the eggs from different roosters differently. Use your own system but I’d probably use a black sharpie on one set and a red sharpie on the other. When you go to lockdown, separate the eggs. I don’t know what your incubator looks like, maybe you could build a fence across it with hardware cloth that will keep the chicks separated as they hatch. They are pretty good at moving around as they dry off so make it a good fence. With mine I’d bend a basket out of hardware cloth, one with a flat top, and set it over one set of eggs. That should keep them separated until you take them out, then it’s up to you how you identify them.

If you decide on a staggered hatch, I’d keep the first eggs that hatch from crawling over the later eggs and sliming them and pooping on them, either with the wall or the basket.

You have your own goals and reasons for doing what you want to do. Hopefully this will help you decide what is the best way forward for you. Good luck!

 

[lazy gardener]

As for brooding chicks, I've brooded chicks in the same brooder with a 3 week age spread, using heating pad caves. (it takes about a week from hatch of the second batch before they are agile and big enough to take the divider away.) You could do as RR says, and give each roo half of the hens. After a week with the hens, you then remove the roos so the hens can start clearing sperm out of their systems. Collect your eggs, incubate them. 2 weeks after removing the roos, do the roo swap. and collect the next batch of eggs. Of course you will need to keep the roos away from this group of ladies for the "clearance" time.

What are the breeds you are working with?

 

[atm21]

As for brooding chicks, I've brooded chicks in the same brooder with a 3 week age spread, using heating pad caves.  (it takes about a week from hatch of the second batch before they are agile and big enough to take the divider away.)  You could do as RR says, and give each roo half of the hens.  After a week with the hens, you then remove the roos so the hens can start clearing sperm out of their systems.  Collect your eggs, incubate them.  2 weeks after removing the roos, do the roo swap.  and collect the next batch of eggs.  Of course you will need to keep the roos away from this group of ladies for the "clearance" time.

What are the breeds you are working with?

I want to use two roosters mainly because the hens are barred rocks and buff Orpingtons. My roosters are blue ameraucana and lavender Orpington. I only have two pens which is the biggest issue that I have for space. I'm really hoping to get some sex links from the barred rocks and I'd like to get pullets that carry the lavender gene and breed them back to the father for lavender ones next year. My incubator is actually an older model my grandpa has it's got four shelves in it so staggering a hatch can't be that hard because whichever hatches first I'd start on the bottom then I can just remove the shelve to keep it cleaner in there. My goal is close in age bc I only have two pens so all the chicks will be together eventually. So many scenarios to work out lol just trying to make it work the best I can. But basically everyone agrees two weeks is long enough for the sperm to leave right? So I can leave the rooster in there with them for about a week collect eggs then take him out add the other rooster but wait two weeks to collect eggs from the second rooster breeding?

 

[peaceisgreen]

you may want to consider cycling a couple hens in for a couple days that will guarantee they were fertilized im not sure if youre able to do this but im just worried about your fertility rate other than that i think youve got a pretty good plan

 

[aart]

Quote: Maybe, but probably not.....like I said before, 3-4 weeks is better.
Sounds like you're more concerned about the offspring being close in age,
rather than the purity of your crosses.

 

[atm21]

Maybe, but probably not.....like I said before, 3-4 weeks is better.
Sounds like you're more concerned about the offspring being close in age,
rather than the purity of your crosses.

Yes that's true it's probably more important for them to be close in age. My hens now are together from two separate groups but they are free range for most of the day so they get along well. I just don't want to rely on that in case I start having predator problems. So I'll collect from the 12 after R1 is with them for a week since he's with them all now but 40 of them so he's definitely not getting them all lol,even though he is very active. Then I'll collect eggs, then put R2 wait 3 weeks then collect again. So they'll be about 3-4 weeks apart from both groups. What do you think is the longest i should wait to collect eggs from the hens after R1 hoping to get the best fertility 5-7 days?

 

[atm21]

you may want to consider cycling a couple hens in for a couple days that will guarantee they were fertilized im not sure if youre able to do this but im just worried about your fertility rate other than that i think youve got a pretty good plan

What do you mean cycling in?

 

[peaceisgreen]

give the rooster 2 or 3 hens at a time and leave them for 2 or 3 days and after that put the other 2 or 3 hens in and repeat as necessary this will give him less to focus on at once and gives you the higher probability of all the hens eggs being fertile

 

[atm21]

Is this a fertile egg? Just curious if you can help me you've all been so helpful so far

. I know I read somewhere about the bullseye but I can't really tell it's hard to see