Infertile rooster?

[rotagen]

Hey all, couple questions. I have a real pretty Isbar rooster who is a little over 8 mos old. He's been at it with my slightly larger breed hens since he was about 4 1/2 mos old. I have seen some intermittent eggs that I think had a bullseye, but after 3 attempts at incubating about 6 eggs at a time, once 2 wks ago..candling at around 8 days showed they were all nothingburgers (I usually have good success rate with my conditions).

It doesn't look like he spends enough time doing the act, I'm not an expert. Sometimes he does take longer and they're often moving their tail to help him. I think it's mechanical lack of experience.

Now the questions.

I have heard the bullseye should be around 1/4 inch in size? I have seen smaller things that look bullseyish, but never a real defined outer white ring...sometimes a dark outer ring. I have seen definite differences in size of white area but none that big. Hard to find a good zoomed in picture of the yolk.

Secondly, How common is it for a rooster to be biologically infertile ? (not just inexperienced).

Frustrated, thanks.

 

[LaFleche]

they do get spoiled with sunflower seeds every morning

Another reason for infertility could be that he might just bee too fat. sometimes too much of a good thing can lead to issues.

 

[3KillerBs]

He's very young still. He might need to improve his technique, especially if his hens are bigger than he is.

 

[rotagen]

Thanks, it's good to hear from someone experienced, I hatched the friendly gentleman, took good care of him and had to cull one roo for crazy aggressiveness at young age (shame, he was a fast grower), gave another one away because I liked this one better, real curious and friendly, smart. I read somewhere the range is usually 6-9 mos for fertility...the hens are just now one year old...maybe also a bit young, not sure.

 

[LaFleche]

Did you recently treat your chickens with some antibiotics? There are some antibiotics that lead to temporary infertility in roosters.

Roosters need lots of natural sunlight and vitamin E to produce fertile sperm. You could add a vitamin supplement to their drinking water and provide lots of shredded vegetables mixed with corn or sunflower oil and some brewers yeast.

And you might want to trim the plushy feathers on your hens rear all around the vent area, this helps for smaller roosters to really connect with the cloaca. Prune his rear as well for better results.

 

[rotagen]

Thanks for the tips, they do get spoiled with sunflower seeds every morning, those are also high in vitamin E. No Ab treatments for months, he did get some when he was quite young as they all got either coccidio or quail disease so I gave them corid and amoxicillin.
Speaking of supplements I recently read an article in a journal that showed that Betaine (from beets) helps fertility in Roosters during Hot weather...which we have pretty much all summer here... a couple straight weeks of 100 degrees is not that unusual. And hot weather is known to reduce rooster fertility... and probably me too lol. They tried with vitamin supplements...E and Selenium (antioxidant)...and it turned out Betaine alone was just as effective as the combination...vitamins alone NOT...So I did feet him some beet greens from my garden but I should give him more...just want to keep them growing. Betaine is pretty amazing...even in the amounts you would eat in a salad you get a fairly long term effect preventing heart disease.
An unrelated tip: Soaking a broody hen's butt (bottom half of her body) in cool water does actually work to stop broodiness...at least in my hands. They seem to like it too, at least my faverolles. But you have to hold them down for about 5-7 minutes until they resist hard, before that they stay calm...sometimes it takes a 2nd treatment.

 

[rotagen]

From what I'm hearing from experienced locals, etc. it's probably just inexperience and he's still a bit young. The butt trimming idea is a good one, I just can't bring myself to trim the sweet faverolle hens when their backs are already so treaded on.
I also read fat-ness can be an issue but I doubt it in this case, he gets plenty of exercise in a big pen and he always burps at the food and lets the hens eat first, only getting a few seeds... a swedish gentleman.

 

[LaFleche]

Inexperience could be the reason, but even an experienced rooster has difficulties to make contact if there is too much plush.
You might want to cover the bare backs of the Faverolles with a chicken apron and trim their butt plumage anyway....

Being a double purpose breed Faverolles are known to easily accumulate quite a fat pad in the butt region which might also hinder a good contact.

 

[rotagen]

good idea on the aprons. I also have reds and a blue isbar hen. They are very similar in shape/size with tighter feathers and less fluff. Their eggs are also mostly infertile right now though. The isbar just started laying regularly couple weeks ago at almost 8 months,,, a late bloomer so I'm thinking since he's her littermate they are similar in maturity.
The Isbar is now my favorite breed...they out-forage and outsmart even the reds...even quieter than the reds and more friendly, very low maintenance, and the hen lays HUGE green speckled eggs nearly every day.
I just hatched some barnyard mix eggs from a local with 95% hatch rate...dry hatching is the way to go. These will be free range (nearly) and I live in hawk central with lots of red-tails loving the updrafts on my back hill ... I've a feeling the free-range birds will be smarter and more fertile but I'm sure I will be losing some...theu'll definitely be happier...my current birds have a 30x30 foot area (8 birds total) so they're not too bad off...but I digress...it's all interesting stuff.

 

[LaFleche]

I have Isbar/Silverudds too and like them very much.

And a pair of red kites is actually nesting about only 35-40 meters away on one of our old oak trees. Downright beautiful to see them gliding high above the runs. But sometimes they like to startle us by taking a nosedive...