How old before rooster is fertile?

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i have never raised chicks the old fashioned way. But i finally have a gorgeous white silkie rooster who will be 18 weeks old in a couple of days. He is already crowing and showing some interest in his little girlfriends. He also loves to dance around the adult silkie pen. i have seen him attempt mating with one of his sisters, but have not put him in with the big girls yet. (Well, i did once for just a moment and several of them tried to beat him up.)

i would love to mate him with my frizzled silkie/japanese/polish/mille fleur hen. So my question is, at what age or point is a rooster fertile? Once he gets the hang of mating, is he fertile right away? And then how soon after being mated might one consider the hens eggs to be potentially fertile?

Thanks! Colleen

 

[seriousbill]

Hi. Well, it varies, but most cockerels are actually fertile pretty much as soon as they begin to mate the hens, with anywhere from 16-20 weeks being the norm. Sometimes there's a lag time of a couple of weeks between mating and actual fertility and sometimes there's not. The problem is more often that the youngsters don't yet have the proper mounting technique under control, and also sometimes they're intimidated by older hens. As soon as he gets the hang of it, you can reasonably assume the eggs will be fertile in a small breeding pen.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Well, we may have a problem with him getting the hang of things. i just pulled out one of my more docile adult hens, and he went flying at her, missed, and ended up on his caboose. She got ticked, pecked him, and he went running away like a girly-roo.

It may be a good long time before i have fertile eggs.

 

[gervais22]

Maybe a while after hens start laying eggs, like humans lol

 

[Eggseronious]

Throw him to the girls! He's 18 isn't he?