Fertilized or not?

[TLeo13]

I would love to hatch some baby chicks of my own but how do i know if one of my eggs are fertilized? I have a rooster who does his job A LOT and probley is getting eggs fertilized but my hens aren't broody so does that mean a chick wont form in the egg since they arent laying on it?

 

[Frannabelle]

Your rooster is fertilizing your girls, once he covers them I think it lasts for awhile. Wait til one of them goes broody, she'll do the rest!
When my girls were broody last late summer, I collected what eggs I wanted to try to hatch and put them under the girls and they all hatched. Lucky me, they were all hens!

 

[sourland]

Nope, the chicks won't form until the hen goes broody and sets on the eggs for 21 days. That's how it works.

Edited to add that not all breeds go broody. Check to make sure that you have a broody breed if you want to hatch your own chicks under a hen.

 

[HEChicken]

Here is a link to pictures of what the yolk looks like when the egg is fertile.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16008
If you crack open one of your eggs and look for the bullseye, you'll know whether or not your eggs have been fertilized. That is step one. Step two is to either wait for a hen to go broody or get yourself an incubator.