Interbreeding?

[chickima]

I have eight hands and they free range in the yard and four or not yet laying. Today in the nesting box I found a chicken embryo and we do not have a rooster. I am fully upside down about this and would love your thoughts? Here’s a pic. Also it’s been several months and my pullets are still being bullied by my hens. Any tips?! Thank you!

 

[Show Sebright]

That is crazy! One of the hens might have just turned to a rooster.

 

[Neggative]

Or just a roo who looks like a hen.....and doesn't know how to crow.....

 

[featheredplanets]

That doesn’t look like an embryo to me. Looks like a lash egg or a piece of reproductive tract.

 

[centrarchid]

That doesn’t look like an embryo to me. Looks like a lash egg or a piece of reproductive tract.

This I think is correct.

 

[chickima]

I saw an eye, a beak, and wings. But if it were an organ, what to do now? Maybe One of the pullets was wrongly sext as a rooster. But wouldn’t that require the rooster to have gone through puberty to inseminate a hen?!!! They are only 4-5 months old. The hens are six years old.

 

[featheredplanets]

I saw an eye, a beak, and wings. But if it were an organ, what to do now? Maybe One of the pullets was wrongly sext as a rooster. But wouldn’t that require the rooster to have gone through puberty to inseminate a hen?!!! They are only 4-5 months old. The hens are six years old.

I think it’s possible that it just looked like eyes and a beak. I’ve had dead eggs that I’ve opened and the embryos don’t look like that. Lash eggs can look strange:

This is roughly what an embryo should look like

Post some pictures of your birds. Even if a cockerel didn’t crow, you’d see him mating. That egg would have to have been left there for 2 weeks-ish with hens sitting on it every now and then. And if it were old enough to hatch, it would be feathered, so one of the chickens would have to have broken the egg, did you find any egg pieces? If you still have the lash egg/embryo post some more pics of it.