Low fertility/testosterone rooster

[aart]

Like I suggested earlier, put the remaining 7 Araucana hens with him and remove all others and he will mate with them soon enough.

Chicken don't like changes at all and even less changes in their flock dynamics.
Once they have settled and their new pecking order is established they will be willing to mate.

This^^^ makes a LOT of sense.

But I guess my main concern is I just see him mating so much less than previous roosters, even in bad weather. The flip side of that is he also crows less and causes less grief than previous roosters plus the little bugger has really grown on me, really not looking forward to replacing him.

I'd keep watching the eggs for fertility, it doesn't take non-stop mating to achieve fertility...and he may be mounting more often than you know.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This old thread might help you. From your posts I'd trim or pluck the rooster. The hens may not need it but trimming or plucking them may help.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/trimming-vent-feathers.131722/

Several years ago there was a discussion among breeders on this forum about fertility in winter. To have chicken ready for specific shows they needed to hatch in winter. Some of them said they had very low fertility in winter, others said it was fine. Each situation is different. Your time of year may be making a difference.

Not all of us have the infrastructure to isolate a rooster with certain hens. If you can, your chance of getting fertile eggs from the hens you want will go up.

 

[NatJ]

My current thinking is I might try him on his own for a couple of days then introduce the 3 hens I really want to breed him with then gradually add more

I would not bother putting him on his own, just give him those 3 most important hens. I think that has the best chance of getting fertile eggs from those hens in a timely fashion.

I'm not sure about adding more: he might handle them just fine, but the people worrying about flock disruption are also making a valid point. Maybe see how the first 3 go, and then decide.

bit of a timeline on that though as I'll need the second pen for a broody in 3 weeks and I've got people clamouring for fertile eggs too.

If it works, you may consider whether you can divide the main pen, so the rooster can stay with a small number of hens and the other hens can be in the other part of the pen.

And if it does not work, at least you will know you tried that, and then you can figure out what to try next.

I've had some hens that were fertile a month ago are no longer fertile. For example the only fertile eggs in the last 2 hatches were from a leghorn that lays the only white eggs I get but the most recent check showed no fertility in her eggs. I have 3 cream legbar hens and in the last week I've seen him mating with a cream legbar hen every time I go out but never with an araucana.

Some people say they can tell fertility accurately by looking for a bullseye, but I know that some people (including myself) cannot. I have tested it by cracking one egg to look for a bullseye, then incubating an egg from the same hen, laid the day before or the day after, repeated across multiple hens. For me, I am wrong at least as often as I am right, with my "wrong" being both directions (I think it's fertile but it is not, or I think it is infertile but it really was fertile.) I've tested enough times to prove that *I* cannot accurately tell by looking for bullseyes, even though apparently some other people can.

So if you are determing fertility by looking for bullseyes, you might consider incubating some eggs to check whether they are actually fertile and you are just not recognizing it.

 

[LaFleche]

Would that affect the ovum developing into that 'bullseye' shape you observe when you open a fertilized egg because I've been sporadically checking eggs and very few have got that. No antibiotics or pesticide exposure that I know of. I do think the miserable weather might explain a bit of it, I cracked open a dozen eggs on wednesday and observed 3 fertilised eggs which is a step up from the none last time I did that and I have another batch in the incubator that I'll be candling tomorrow, plus the hen going broody 2 days ago gives me some optimism the fertility is going up. But I guess my main concern is I just see him mating so much less than previous roosters, even in bad weather. The flip side of that is he also crows less and causes less grief than previous roosters plus the little bugger has really grown on me, really not looking forward to replacing him.

You would need to incubate the eggs for at least 5-7 days with green eggs to see if at all and how many develop. Just cracking some eggs can be deceiving.

Also you can try artificial light in your coop to prolong their day thus allowing them more time to feed.