Mating or fighting ?!

[Cheryl lowe]

Can be pretty aggressive looking.
If he does any harm, separate.
Young cockerels can be, well, passionate.
Don't tolerate him hurting them.

I just found it strange that he jumped on the hen that has been chasing him for the past couple of weeks - as if to punish her! So don’t know if he was being passionate or horrible!!

 

[NatJ]

Do you think he is old enough to pro create?!

If he's mating, then the answer is yes. Some cockerels start much younger than others, but they know better than we do whether they are old enough

Just want to make sure am storing the eggs correctly if they are fertilised ! How are you storing your eggs? From what I understand they need to go in fridge if fertilised - rather than being kept at room temperature

Fertilized eggs will not grow chicks if you put them in the fridge. Refrigerating usually kills the embryo too, so they will not hatch if you later put them in an incubator or under a broody hen. (Chicks never develop inside the fridge, but on rare occasions someone has taken eggs out of the fridge, incubated them, and gotten chicks to develop and hatch.)

There is a range of temperature warmer than the fridge, up to about 75 degrees or so (Farenheit), where eggs just kind of pause: no chicks grow, but the embryos are still alive and can start growing if you put them somewhere warm enough (incubator, under broody hen).

If your "room temperature" is warmer than about 75-80 degrees, the embryos might start to grow. That's not warm enough to develop properly into healthy chicks, but they can start to grow and then die. (Which is not what you want to find in the eggs when you eat them!)

 

[Cheryl lowe]

If he's mating, then the answer is yes. Some cockerels start much younger than others, but they know better than we do whether they are old enough



Fertilized eggs will not grow chicks if you put them in the fridge. Refrigerating usually kills the embryo too, so they will not hatch if you later put them in an incubator or under a broody hen. (Chicks never develop inside the fridge, but on rare occasions someone has taken eggs out of the fridge, incubated them, and gotten chicks to develop and hatch.)

There is a range of temperature warmer than the fridge, up to about 75 degrees or so (Farenheit), where eggs just kind of pause: no chicks grow, but the embryos are still alive and can start growing if you put them somewhere warm enough (incubator, under broody hen).

If your "room temperature" is warmer than about 75-80 degrees, the embryos might start to grow. That's not warm enough to develop properly into healthy chicks, but they can start to grow and then die. (Which is not what you want to find in the eggs when you eat them!)

Thanks . Think I will start refrigerating the eggs just to be on safe side!

 

[NatJ]

OhohohKKKKK!!! are we talking about chickens or ducks?

I think chickens:

peking bantam cockerel... grabbed hold of one of the bossy hens ... grabbed her comb

(Also, "Pekin" is a duck breed, but "Peking" bantam is a kind of chicken--although I wouldn't be sure if it was just the breed name, because auto-correct could easily have mixed that up.)

in either case If you saw a white curly thing drop out of the male that was its penis, a penis is what the male uses to put in the vagina of the female for copulation and only then you get fertile eggs.

With ducks, yes. Male chickens don't have one.

 

[Cheryl lowe]

OhohohKKKKK!!! are we talking about chickens or ducks? If it is ducks the male is called a drake .Does it crow? in either case If you saw a white curly thing drop out of the male that was its penis, a penis is what the male uses to put in the vagina of the female for copulation and only then you get fertile eggs. Only takes a second I have Mute swans at the moment and when you get into heavy birds like them they do better breeding in water. Chickenfinder says God bless

Cockerel and didn’t see a curly thing! Thank goodness!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Refrigeration doesn't really hurt the blastoderm. There is a whole thread here about hatching Trader Joe's fertile eggs. Those eggs have been washed and refrigerated for many eggs but people still hatch them.
Eggs can be held between 32 and 82 F and still be viable. There are more ideal storage temperatures but if the egg only goes through 2 temperature changes, one when the egg is laid and again when it is incubated, any storage temperature in that range can yield a viable embryo.
Duck penis study.
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2001/09/14/366856.htm