HATCHING EGGS FROM A DEAD ROOSTER

[KEarthman]

A bobcat killed our Cream Legbar rooster and 2 hens 2 nights ago. He was our favorite . We have put 2 dozen eggs from his hens into incubators hoping to hatch his offspring. We know that supposedly eggs can stay fertilized and "viable" for 2 weeks. IYO, would you keep collecting his remaining hens' eggs and incubating them? For how long? Has anyone else ever done this with success?

 

[Prince and Pavo]

Hello!

I could be wrong, but I believe that a hen will continue to lay fertile eggs at least a week after mating with a rooster. Try to continue to collect the eggs and put them in the incubator when you’ve collected about a week’s worth. Best of luck!

 

[Prince and Pavo]

I’m so sorry about your rooster by the way .

I actually recently incubated seven eggs and hatched out some chicks for a friend whose entire flock except four hens had gotten wiped out by a coyote. They’d collected eggs for about a week, but I think they could’ve gone even longer, because I think they were all fertilized…

 

[KEarthman]

Thank you. He and the hens were sweet. We also lost an Olive egger 5 days before that. We have game cams and traps ready and waiting!

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

The hens can retain his sperm for several weeks. If introduced to a new rooster, they’ll flush out the old sperm if their bodies find the new rooster more favorable. But if exposed to no rooster or if the new rooster isn’t up to par, they’ll try to retain the old sperm for a long time.

Longest I’ve tried to get fertile eggs from a hen no longer exposed to any rooster was about 2 months after the fact. That didn’t work. At that point her eggs were infertile.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A bobcat killed our Cream Legbar rooster and 2 hens 2 nights ago.

In the last part of the mating act the rooster hops off. His job is done. The hen stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake moves the sperm to a special container near where the egg starts its journey through her internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized during the first few moments of its internal journey.

That sperm can remain viable there anywhere from a week and a half until a lot longer. It's going to vary by hen and rooster how long it does remain viable. For most it's in the range of two and a half weeks but on occasions it has gone over 4 weeks. Some breeders hold a hen away from an undesirable rooster for three weeks before they collect hatching eggs from the new rooster but others wait four weeks. It depends on how sure they want to be.

I don't know how many chicks you actually want. You already have 2 dozen eggs in incubators. If you are desperate to hatch as many as possible you can continue collection for four more weeks. Most of those later ones won't hatch but you could get lucky on a few. I think you can collect eggs for another two weeks and have a reasonable expectation that most of those will hatch.

Unless you know what you are doing I would not do a staggered hatch in one incubator. All the eggs in one incubator need to start at the same time. You can use one incubator to incubate and another solely as a hatcher. If you need help with the details let me know and we can discuss.

 

[KEarthman]

In the last part of the mating act the rooster hops off. His job is done. The hen stands up, fluffs up, and shakes. This fluffy shake moves the sperm to a special container near where the egg starts its journey through her internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized during the first few moments of its internal journey.

That sperm can remain viable there anywhere from a week and a half until a lot longer. It's going to vary by hen and rooster how long it does remain viable. For most it's in the range of two and a half weeks but on occasions it has gone over 4 weeks. Some breeders hold a hen away from an undesirable rooster for three weeks before they collect hatching eggs from the new rooster but others wait four weeks. It depends on how sure they want to be.

I don't know how many chicks you actually want. You already have 2 dozen eggs in incubators. If you are desperate to hatch as many as possible you can continue collection for four more weeks. Most of those later ones won't hatch but you could get lucky on a few. I think you can collect eggs for another two weeks and have a reasonable expectation that most of those will hatch.

Unless you know what you are doing I would not do a staggered hatch in one incubator. All the eggs in one incubator need to start at the same time. You can use one incubator to incubate and another solely as a hatcher. If you need help with the details let me know and we can discuss.

Thanks for the sex-ed info. Lol.We do know not to stagger. The hens are unrelated to him. And there's a request for some of our CL eggs. So we were already going to incubate some. We just decided to fill all of the bators when we lost him. Thanks again!