I should have know grrrr aaag.

[PotterWatch]

Have you cracked any open to see if they are fertile?

 

[PotterWatch]

You keep saying Google, but I don't see anything on Google that says they are infertile. As far as I can tell, maybe you are reading the topics that pop up on Google but not the actual posts. There is no reason for all Isa Brown hens to be infertile. As other people have said, they are a hybrid that won't breed true (meaning you can't sex their offspring by color), but they can still breed.

 

[satay]

We have 4 roosters.

i have hatched quite a few isa brown x chicks. They are not sex linked at birth . I have never had one go broody though so you need to put eggs under another hen or in the incubator most of the time.

 

[PotterWatch]

 
Ugh, that stinks.  What though do you mean by fail?  Do the hens give up before 21 days, or do chicks not appear at 21 days?  Maybe they were brooding non-fertilized eggs.  I am going to look up the ISA Brown's fertility.

ISA browns have been bread to not be at all fertile says google as they are genetic owned property.

I read the topic you are talking about that came up on google but I think you are misunderstanding it. What it was saying is that you can't buying hatching eggs that produce the exact cross that is called an Isa brown. Not that they have been engineered somehow to be infertile. This is what Wikipedia has to say about them:

ISA Browns can be bred with any rooster and produce offspring, but these offspring are not themselves ISA Browns. The name is trademarked to the "Institut de Sélection Animale" and those suppliers who have licensed the breed from it. They are simply crossbred brown layers.

 

[Windrider]

OP, I find this insistence that no Isa Brown are fertile, backed up only by the word "Google" very odd and not helpful at all. Please link us to the page where you found the info so we can see what you mean and have an actual discussion. The only links I get Googling Isa Brown fertility/infertility has bunches of people selling fertile Isa Brown eggs. And since I own an Isa Brown cross pullet I got from a friend, I am kinda wondering how she came to be! ;-)

If you checked out the link posted by a member earlier, you would see that at least two members here personally raised not just one generation of Isa Brown X Isa Brown, but at least five generations! I have also seen many others with crosses with Isa Brown (wasn't the famous "Littlest Rooster" story thread about an Isa Brown cross rooster?).

 

[youngchooklover]

OP, I find this insistence that no Isa Brown are fertile, backed up only by the word "Google" very odd and not helpful at all. Please link us to the page where you found the info so we can see what you mean and have an actual discussion. The only links I get Googling Isa Brown fertility/infertility has bunches of people selling fertile Isa Brown eggs. And since I own an Isa Brown cross pullet I got from a friend, I am kinda wondering how she came to be! ;-)

If you checked out the link posted by a member earlier, you would see that at least two members here personally raised not just one generation of Isa Brown X Isa Brown, but at least five generations! I have also seen many others with crosses with Isa Brown (wasn't the famous "Littlest Rooster" story thread about an Isa Brown cross rooster?).

k

 

[LSBuckOE]

If the hens are laying eggs, they're fertile. If they're with a male & the eggs aren't hatching after incubation, it may be due to the male being sterile.

 

[Windrider]

Well, I was trying to give the OP the benefit of doubt. If her male rooster is getting the job done and fathering chicks with other hens, maybe her Isa Brown hen is sterile. There are reasons a hen could be sterile, but that isn't the same thing as saying all hens of that breed are sterile.

 

[aoxa]

Tell that to my ISA second generation hen here, Lydia Her mother has given me many chicks.

Some more from her:








Another.. this was a male.

 

[aoxa]

If the hens are laying eggs, they're fertile. If they're with a male & the eggs aren't hatching after incubation, it may be due to the male being sterile.

This or the incubation was not done properly.