Low fertility rate

[Pmjdmm91]

Hello, I'm long time lurker and this is my first post here. I'm not new to having chickens and have been raising them for roughly 20 years or so. I've never had any fertility problems within a flock and I'm not sure if it's the fact that it's winter and cold here in Western NY but heres what I have going on. I use a nurture right 360 incubator that I love and have always had excellent results with. Last month I incubated 18 eggs. 3 of which hatched, 3 were clears and the rest stopped development early on. I always check the incubator and make sure the auto Turner is working and religiously check temp and humidity. Now the eggs from the last batch were half from my flock and half from the a random stand I know of locally that has Easter eggers. I've had great luck buying and hatching their eggs in the past. Of the 3 eggs that hatched 2 were from the bought eggs and 1 was from my flock. I took it as an "oh well" and collected 16 eggs from my flock and reset the incubator 3 days later. Yes I sterilized it very well. Fast forward 11 days into candeling and of 16 only 7 are growing. On that note all the eggs that are growing are from the same hen. I have 6 hens, 4 of which lay. My flock is young at roughly 10 months but not laying tiny pullet eggs. My rooster is a buff orpington along with 3 of my hens. My other hens are Easter eggers, Easter egger x gold laced Wyandotte cross (absolutely beautiful bird that lays green eggs) and a jersey giant x buff orpington hen (also a gorgeous cross). The only eggs I have from them that are fertile are from a buff orpington hen. Cracking them open when we cook with them, hers are the only fertile ones. All the chickens are the same age and all hatched from the same batch of eggs in the incubator. Some of the flock share the same father but not the same mother's. My two ee hens are from different stock but the same hatching. Why is my rooster only mating one hen? Is it because she's his favorite and it's winter so they aren't " in the mood" to breed so he's only using his favorite girl? Just by looking at the eggs I know 100% it's all from the same hen. I'm sure a lot of you out there know which hens lay which eggs by color and size. Sorry for the long post, just trying to give as much info as possible

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I would believe the same. I have quite a few males that arent breeding currently, and 2 that i know of that are.

 

[Pmjdmm91]

Thank you for responding, I suppose I will see if any of these current eggs hatch and go from there. I was hoping to have more started chicks by the time spring rolls around for earlier in the year egg production. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to wait until they start breeding more regularly.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Have you looked into AI?

More time consuming, but you're likely to have better rates then since you know the hens are being 'bred'

 

[Pmjdmm91]

I honestly never knew that was an option for chickens. I've seen it my whole life on cows growing up in a big dairy farm community and working farms. I'll just let nature take it's course. The odd thing is I see lots of fertile eggs when cooking, then when I decide I want to incubate I seem to get a bunch of duds. When looking g at my yolks It seems that my fertile eggs come in waves every couple weeks