Is this fertilized?

[davekrista]

So now I have all of them laying. I think its been about a week since we got our 1st. The eggs are more normal size now. And from what I can tell they have been fertilized. I can't really get a good pic though. It has like a small white circle, then sort of like a clearish circle around that and a lighter white around that, almost like a faint circle, if that makes sense. I took pics but you can't really see it like the naked eye. I will post the pics so maybe some of you with more experience can tell? This just happens to be a double yolker

 

[chickenlover<3]

yes looks like it to me

 

[satay]

Yes, they look fertile to me.

 

[LAseramas KP]

yup very fertile

 

[davekrista]

Ok, so starting with tomorrow's eggs, I think I want to try to either let her sit on them or put them in my bator if she doesn't go broody. About how long should I wait to put it in the bator. Is it 1 week? or how long?

 

[70%cocoa]

I think that the general rule is to let them sit for 24 hours after being laid to let the air sac start to develop and then you can incubate. Eggs more than a week old will have a lesser likelihood of hatching. So, incubate eggs that are between 24 hours and 7 days old.

When I start to incubate eggs I am going to collect them over a week and then put them all in the incubator together.

 

[DuckLover9138]

Quote:
The eggs I buy look like it. Sigh, it means I been eating potentially fertile eggs.

 

[FenDruadin]

You can set them in the incubator immediately upon collection if you like. But you'll want to set them all at once, so depending on how many eggs you get in a day, you may want to wait a while and collect as many as you need. I've had excellent hatch rates on eggs placed in the incubator on the same day they are collected--in fact, they tend to hatch earlier than eggs placed after a few days of sitting (earlier by a few hours--nothing significant--but interesting nonetheless).

Good luck. Those certainly look like fertile eggs to me too. Have fun!

 

[davekrista]

I'm so excited. So how many fertilized eggs does one "mating session" produce?

 

[FenDruadin]

One mating session can fertilize eggs for up to two weeks (that's a potential 14 eggs, wow! lol). The female has special structures internally that store sperm and she can, at some level, "select" which sperm to use. This is critical information when breeding because you need to separate hens from all drakes but the intended father at least two weeks before collecting eggs for hatching, unless you don't care who the father is. But for your purposes, just know that they will breed plenty plenty to do the job. My guys do their duty at least every ten minutes through the course of the day. That is more than enough. lol.