Is this egg fertile?

[Ridgerunner]

I can't bring another male because I have 5 hens only. I really don't know what to do....

Give it time and see what happens or get rid if this one and get a different one.

 

[Slothinc]

Are your other hens having fertilized eggs?

 

[Johnchickens2]

Are your other hens having fertilized eggs?

Here are other chickens eggs (not hers). What do you say?

 

[Johnchickens2]

Her eggs don't look like this...

 

[Slothinc]

I would say the other eggs look fertilized! At least most of them do! So your rooster must be getting the job done with the other ladies… do you have pics of the birds in question? You could trim around the vents on both of them?

 

[Johnchickens2]

I would say the other eggs look fertilized! At least most of them do! So your rooster must be getting the job done with the other ladies… do you have pics of the birds in question? You could trim around the vents on both of them?

Thank you!!

How will I know how & how much of the feathers to cut?

 

[Slothinc]

Thank you!!

How will I know how & how much of the feathers to cut?

Depending on the bird it can be hard to give a trim. Having someone help hold can be very helpful. But you can take a towel or small blanket and wrap it around the front of the bird so that they feel secure and can’t flap their wings. Then have someone hold the bird still while you trim the feathers to each side of the vent. Do not get close to the vent, it would be horrible accidentally cut it. But you can cut back the feathers to either side so that they are out of the way.

You could also isolate that hen with the roo afterwards for the rest of the day or the next couple of days. Maybe your Roo only mates some of the hens because they are easier but perhaps if he didn’t have other girls with him he would try harder with the one? Just throwing out some ideas, not actually sure if any of them will work well, but I do hope you can get it figured out!!

 

[Johnchickens2]

Hi all, thank you for your comments. Today I put treats in the coop, waited for all the girls to come in and then closed the door. Left outside only the rooster and the hen we talk about. After a few minutes he mounted her, after about two tries with his tail, it looked like he did it because he let her go and she shook her feathers. What do you think?

And, should I start storing her eggs for incubation or is it too early?

 

[Slothinc]

Hi all, thank you for your comments. Today I put treats in the coop, waited for all the girls to come in and then closed the door. Left outside only the rooster and the hen we talk about. After a few minutes he mounted her, after about two tries with his tail, it looked like he did it because he let her go and she shook her feathers. What do you think?

And, should I start storing her eggs for incubation or is it too early?

I have heard that the first egg may not be fertilized (because the sperm has to be added in the very early stages of making the egg) but then the next one should be. If you aren’t sure but don’t want to crack it to check, you can always save some of the eggs, add them to the incubator and candle them on day 4 to check for fertility. However, you may end up with a staggered hatch if you do it this way, which could be a problem.

In the meantime, I think it would be a good idea if you repeat that experiment every day or two, to give the male a chance to be alone with that hen and mate her. It certainly wouldn’t hurt anything and may help to ensure that the eggs will be fertilized.

 

[Ridgerunner]

should I start storing her eggs for incubation or is it too early?

It takes an egg about 25 hours to make its journey through the hen's internal egg making factory. That egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. That means if a mating takes place on a Thursday, Thursday's egg cannot be fertile from that mating. Friday's egg might or might not be, depending in what time the mating took place and when the egg was laid. Saturday's egg should be fertile from that mating. So wait until the third day after the mating to collect the eggs for hatching.

A hen stores the sperm in a special container near where that journey starts. That sperm can remain viable for over 9 days. Two weeks is common. So he does not need to mate with her every day for her to lay fertile eggs.

Good luck!