It takes about 25 hours for an egg to make it through the hen’s internal egg making factory. The egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey, so if a mating takes place on a Monday, Monday’s egg will not be fertile. Tuesday’s egg might be, depending on when the mating took place and the egg started its journey, but I would not count on it. Wednesday’s egg will be fertile.
Of course, this is after a successful mating. A rooster does not always mate every hen in the flock every day and not all matings are successful, even if it looks like they are to an observer. When they do successfully mate the hen can store sperm for two or even three weeks sometimes in a special container near where the egg starts its journey. So as long as the rooster mates with the hen about once every two weeks, the eggs should remain fertile.
I know of only two practical ways for us to tell if an egg is fertile. Incubate it and see if it develops or crack it open and look for the bull’s eye. If most of the eggs you crack open are fertile, then most of the eggs you don’t open should also be fertile.
One essential part of the mating ritual is the head grab. After the rooster hops on he grabs the back of the hen’s head. This is her signal to raise her tail up out of the way an expose the target. If the rooster does not grab the back of her head, she does not raise her tail and there are no fertile eggs.
I’ve seen the same kinds of feather loss, either on the backs or the backs of the head, with high hen-rooster ratios and low hen-rooster rations. I’ve also seen no real feather loss anywhere with high and low ratios. There are many different possible factors. It may be bad technique by the rooster or the hen. The hen has a part to play in this as well. The rooster may be a brute. The hen may resist too much. Some hens have brittle feathers. That’s genetic. No matter how gentle the rooster is some feathers are just going to break.
Often when you see these problems you are not talking about hens and roosters, you are talking about pullets and cockerels, adolescents with hormones running wild and no idea how to control them. Cockerels usually mature earlier than pullets so you have cockerels so high on hormones they are out of control and pullets that have no idea how to play their part. Watching pullets and cockerels go through adolescence is not for the faint of heart. Usually if you can make it through this phase they will mature and settle down into a nice calm flock. Usually.
Often with these young chickens there are several cockerels, especially if you hatch them yourself or get them straight run. I hatch my own and raise my cockerels to butcher age with the flock, anywhere from 5 months to 7 months. I do have a mature rooster in the flock that helps keep some control but it can get really wild down in chicken town when adolescence hits. I hardly ever see any significant feather loss on any pullet or hen. It’s normal for an occasional feather to come out during mating, but you don’t want any bare skin. I always recommend you keep as few roosters as you can and still meet your goals, not because you are guaranteed problems with more roosters, just that your odds of having problems go up the more roosters you have.
When you have a problem in your flock you need to decide if it is a flock problem or an individual chicken problem so you can decide best how to handle it. If one hen is the only hen having these problems it may be her fault, not the rooster’s. When I first got my flock after moving here, I had a couple of hens that were consistently barebacked as they matured. My rooster to hen ratio was supposedly very good. I ate those hens and did not allow them to reproduce and pass those genetics down in my flock. The problem immediately went away and I have not seen it come back.
Of course, this is after a successful mating. A rooster does not always mate every hen in the flock every day and not all matings are successful, even if it looks like they are to an observer. When they do successfully mate the hen can store sperm for two or even three weeks sometimes in a special container near where the egg starts its journey. So as long as the rooster mates with the hen about once every two weeks, the eggs should remain fertile.
I know of only two practical ways for us to tell if an egg is fertile. Incubate it and see if it develops or crack it open and look for the bull’s eye. If most of the eggs you crack open are fertile, then most of the eggs you don’t open should also be fertile.
One essential part of the mating ritual is the head grab. After the rooster hops on he grabs the back of the hen’s head. This is her signal to raise her tail up out of the way an expose the target. If the rooster does not grab the back of her head, she does not raise her tail and there are no fertile eggs.
I’ve seen the same kinds of feather loss, either on the backs or the backs of the head, with high hen-rooster ratios and low hen-rooster rations. I’ve also seen no real feather loss anywhere with high and low ratios. There are many different possible factors. It may be bad technique by the rooster or the hen. The hen has a part to play in this as well. The rooster may be a brute. The hen may resist too much. Some hens have brittle feathers. That’s genetic. No matter how gentle the rooster is some feathers are just going to break.
Often when you see these problems you are not talking about hens and roosters, you are talking about pullets and cockerels, adolescents with hormones running wild and no idea how to control them. Cockerels usually mature earlier than pullets so you have cockerels so high on hormones they are out of control and pullets that have no idea how to play their part. Watching pullets and cockerels go through adolescence is not for the faint of heart. Usually if you can make it through this phase they will mature and settle down into a nice calm flock. Usually.
Often with these young chickens there are several cockerels, especially if you hatch them yourself or get them straight run. I hatch my own and raise my cockerels to butcher age with the flock, anywhere from 5 months to 7 months. I do have a mature rooster in the flock that helps keep some control but it can get really wild down in chicken town when adolescence hits. I hardly ever see any significant feather loss on any pullet or hen. It’s normal for an occasional feather to come out during mating, but you don’t want any bare skin. I always recommend you keep as few roosters as you can and still meet your goals, not because you are guaranteed problems with more roosters, just that your odds of having problems go up the more roosters you have.
When you have a problem in your flock you need to decide if it is a flock problem or an individual chicken problem so you can decide best how to handle it. If one hen is the only hen having these problems it may be her fault, not the rooster’s. When I first got my flock after moving here, I had a couple of hens that were consistently barebacked as they matured. My rooster to hen ratio was supposedly very good. I ate those hens and did not allow them to reproduce and pass those genetics down in my flock. The problem immediately went away and I have not seen it come back.
