Help Please!?

[bharless]

My husband and I are very new to raising chickens. We have 34 birds. Out of those, we think we have 10-12 Roosters. (we are not sure exactly how to sex them...we are working on that, any help there would be great too!) They have just started laying around a week ago. My question is...how do we know if the eggs need to be put in the incubator or if we should put them in the egg carton?

Any help would be great!

 

[Joshua G]

Welcome to BYC!
Any egg laid can be eaten and doesn't have to be incubated, provided it isn't cracked, too old, or been partially incubated by a broody hen.
As far as incubating, there isn't a way to tell if an egg is fertile unless you break it open, rendering it worthless for incubating but still good for eating.
Hope this helps.

 

[Joshua G]

If you post some pictures of your chickens, we might be able to help in determining gender.

 

[theoldchick]

Well if the hens are laying the roosters should be crowing. If the rooster are roaming with the hens chances are the eggs are fertile. To prevent chick development or the accidental rotten egg collect your eggs daily and don't allow your broodys to set on any eggs.


This is a pullet near point of lay




This is a hen in full lay






This is a cockerel.


All these birds are the same age. Note how the one pullet has more developed comb and wattles (she developed faster probably due to her genetics) and the cockerel has even larger comb and wattles.


Hope this helps and welcome to BYC!

 

[Rocky Rhodes]

Welcome from Georgia!! What breed/breeds do you have? If you post some pics of your birds, I would be glad to take a guess at their sex. If you plan to incubate eggs and think you have around twenty hens, then you could always keep half of your hens with a rooster and collect those eggs to hatch, and separate the rest in their own coop for eating eggs. Whatever you choose to do you should collect all your eggs everyday.

 

[bharless]

I tried to get a good variety of our chickens

 

[theoldchick]

You are going to be getting lots of eggs from this flock!

 

[feedman77]

White leghorns. Red sexlinks. Barred rocks. Good mix don't see any roos in the pics.

Gonna have lots of eggs.

Welcome to BYC.

 

[bharless]

We know we have at least one barred rock rooster

 

[ChickDaze]

By now you should have heard crowing practice, and if you spend about a little time outside with them while they are awake, you'll see any roos you have attempt to fertilize eggs. Roos also have much bigger combs. Since you have at least one roo, crowing practice gets confusing since they are the same age, though.