Need Help breeding chickens?

[WiseAlliOwl]

Hi so I was wondering if I could get some advice on breeding together two of my chickens?

The hen is a bantam and the rooster is a Pheonix Long Tail bantam (but he is still twice as big as the hen). Both of them are close to two years old but neither of them have ever been breed before (the rooster can be a little difficult and is picked on a lot due to his tail so is seperated from the other chickens). Anyway, I don't think the two of them get along very well together (the hen doesn't get along with any rooster) so I've set them up in coops next to each other so they can get use to each other. However, as said before the rooster is quite a bit larger than the hen will that be a problem? If it is, is there any way I could make it less stressful for the hen?

Is there anything else I can do? I've never tried to breed together to specific birds before (you know it just normally happens) and they're both tough birds to get along with. Also, how long does it take for a egg to be fertilized and such? Any advice would be great thanks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

It takes an egg about 25 hours to go through the hen’s internal egg-making factory. That egg can only be fertilized in the first few minutes of that journey. So if a successful mating takes place on a Sunday, Sunday’s egg is not fertile. Monday’s egg might be, depending on the timing. I wouldn’t count on it. Tuesday’s egg will be fertile. Note that this is after a mating. Not all roosters mate with every hen in the flock every day.

After a mating the hen stays fertile for a while. It can vary by hen, sometimes as short a time as 9 days, sometimes over three weeks. Most people use two weeks and that usually works out pretty well.

Most roosters are quite a bit bigger than the hen, even if they are the same breed. When chickens mate, the hen squats. This gets her body on the ground so the rooster’s weight passes through her whole body into the ground, not just through her legs. As long as she squats, him being that much bigger than her will not hurt her.