Fertilized by a Ghost

[aart]

I wish I’d taken a picture

Yes, me too.

 

[Feathercrazie]

It can actually last up until a month!! If your rooster passed away two months ago, than the eggs shouldn’t be fertilized. Do you let your hens free range? Sometimes there are roosters that font have a home or perhaps or neighbors have a rooster that came over? Also if you have a picture that could be useful. Sometimes yolks have white on them but aren’t a bullseye which means they aren’t fertile.

I bought five Cubalaya hens at a swap meet. The man I bought them from said his rooster had died about two months before and he had given up trying to find another. About a month after I brought them home one of the hens brought up six chicks that I swear were pure Cubalaya, as the only roosters I had running on the yard were Cochin Bantams.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

How long a hen remains fertile after there is no longer a productive rooster in the picture is open to considerable debate - a month +/- is the typical estimate, though fertile eggs appearing at somewhat longer dates are not unheard of.

The science was rather uncertain around the early parts of last century, and while its gotten better, is still a bit uncertain, and varies by avian species, and possibly by breed to some extent - though the huge variance in individual bird performance in the studies I linked suggests noisy data all around.