infertility

[Coops4me]

I bought a male and 3 females almost a month ago. I have had about 3 dozen eggs from the girls. Here's my problem ..NONE are fertile..no bullseye. I have seen him breed them..Can someone please give me some idea's on what can be wrong,the breeder said she has chicks on the ground recently from them. They are around 4 years old now, is the male to old?

 

[keesmom]

What breed? Have you tried incubating any yet?

 

[Kev]

Roos are fertile until they are dead.

Might help if you mention what breed they are, as some breeds have lines that need some help in breeding such as vent trimming etc.

I also agree with trying to set eggs and see. Check their vents are clean..

 

[Coops4me]

I have set eggs from these. but none are good. Have used a hen and also put in bator..nothing has been good. these are silkies. And I have hatched a ton of babies with my hen and with the bator. Hatched maybe 300 with bator so its not that. I don't have any problem with hatching. The last week I have been cracking the eggs fresh after laying NO bullseye on any.

 

[Kev]

No worries.... we didn't have all the information and IMO it's a bit much to determine fertility solely from presence of bullseye. Just knowing the breed made a big difference... some silkies are so fuzzy around the vents they either just can't or have a very hard time getting the vents to meet up directly.

Would recommend trimming away the feathers around the vent, on both the rooster and hens if you really want to get babies from them pronto. Don't be afraid to "butcher" their feathers off... clear up a big path. Make it easier for the roo to find and make direct contact with the hen's vent.

I've had to do this with some of the show-bred silkies, they have such dense and long feathering all over. Cockerels especially had a hard time figuring out how to do it right.. 100% of the time vent trimming gave fertile results.