Need lots of help...

[Hopefulloflove]

Okay, here is our situtation. We have 20 chickens...we brought them home as chicks last June...they have been so much fun to raise and watch and we adore every one of them! We have...

1 Barnavelder Roo -Rolo
1 Barnevelder Hen-Pecan
1 silkie hen-Luna
3 silkie roos!!!-Klondike, Jack, and Barbosa

2 black austrolorp hens-Shadow and Raven
2 black stars Spooky and Trouble
2 buff brahmas-Cleopatra and Carmel
and the rest are red stars. They all go by the name Honey or Pretty or Missy

We have been getting eggs for about a month now and as I have been checking it appears that about 60% are fertile. We are wanting to (this spring) hatch some chicks...I am a complete newbie, and have been learning as we have gone along on this journey.At present all of our chickens are together. Here are my many questions.

1. Should we seperate our Barnevelders to ensure that we have "full blooded" chicks?
2. Our four silkies are all different, one blue, one partridge, one white and one black, is it ok for them to mix?
3. We have 3 silkie roo's and so far they get along fine, but should we find new homes for some of them? (this is going to be hard on me, as I am very attached to them....)
4. Is it ok for our Barneveldor roo to breed with our other chickens?
5. We want to sell chicks but would we be selling them for other folks to have layers and meat birds, or would people want full blooded chickens?

I hope these questions make sense..if not, just tell me. lol

Thanks in advance and I am sure I will have many more questions to come!
Kate

 

[Hopefulloflove]

I just thought of one more question.

Is candling how you determine if your egg is fertile?

 

[Hopefulloflove]

anyone?

 

[HEChicken]

I just thought of one more question.

Is candling how you determine if your egg is fertile?

I can't answer your questions about genetics, but this one I can help you with! No, you wouldn't candle to determine fertility. When you crack and egg open and drop it into a bowl, examine the yolk. You should be able to find a little whitish spot on the yolk. A fertile egg will have another ring around that spot, making the spot look like a bullseye. There is a thread here somewhere that shows some good pics - let me see if I can find it for you.

 

[HEChicken]

Here you go:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/16008/how-to-tell-a-fertile-vs-infertile-egg-pictures

 

[Hopefulloflove]

I knew about the bullseye and have been seeing some on my eggs YAY...what I should have phrased the question as is how do you know if an egg is fertile before you crack it to incubate, or do you just incubate and see what happens? I know that probably sounds like a lame question..lol

 

[HEChicken]

what I should have phrased the question as is how do you know if an egg is fertile before you crack it to incubate, or do you just incubate and see what happens? I know that probably sounds like a lame question..lol

Yep - you just take a leap of faith! Once you start incubating, after about 4 days if you candle, you should see veining, which indicates it was fertile. I'm not that good at seeing the veining though so I usually wait until about 10 days. At 10 days, I can see a dark shadow in those that are developing and by contrast, the ones that are not developing are completely clear. At that point I feel pretty confident about removing them from the incubator.

 

[Chickgirl201040]

it's perfectly fine if any of your roos breed with other hen I have 4 roos at my house right know and the banty breeds with the standards and the stanards breed with the bantys all the time and the hens are all perfectly fine. but I am only 11 and we haven't hatched any of the eggs yet so I don't know what the chicks will look like

well I hope this helps