New to the egg laying and chicken business! I have questions can someone help me??

[ChKnLuvRs]

so we got our chickens around the middle of April as chicks! in time we have built a coop and acquired a Mille fleur d'uccle Pair.
I have two Rhode island red Hens A Buff Orphington (monsterously big) two D'uccles and two that are unknown.

In my small flock I have two roosters. Yesterday we came home to a fresh laid egg.

one of my questions is when we took the egg inside we wanted to know if it was fertile or not so when we cracked it open we didnt see a donut kinda shap on the yolk but in the actual liquid substance there was this little red looking kidney bean shaped, thing. I was wondering if someone could let me in on what that is and if i should expect that in all my eggs to come.?

i would post a photo but something is wrong and it wont upload. ill upload the photo into my album. -also I was wondering how do I know which of my hens is laying?
someone help!?

 

[morsekathan]

Congratulations on your first egg. So much fun.
I don't have roosters, but I think that you will find that two roosters is one too many for your flock. The recommended ratio is about one rooster per 10 hens. My daughter is having huge problems with her roosters not leaving the hens alone because there are too many for the flock.

As for whether the egg is fertilized. As far as I can understand, you should expect that all your eggs will be fertilized if you have roosters. It's very hard to tell if they are - some small detail that most people can't see. Search the forums for this - there is lots of information out there. However, the eggs don't actually turn into chickens unless they have been incubated. The red spot is probably blood from a broken blood vessel from when the egg was forming. It has nothing to do with fertility and is usually seen in the first eggs when the girls are getting the hang of it. It's totally OK to eat it with the blood spot.

I know which hens are laying which eggs because I have seen them in the nest box and then check the egg. Also, all my girls lay different colored eggs so it's easy to tell and I only have 5. However, someone suggested putting food coloring in their vents and seeing which eggs were streaked with which colors. I suggested this to my daughter who has way more chicken than I (35 to my 6) but she didn't think so!

btw, the pink type is unreadable on my computer screen. You might want to change the color!

 

[Judy]

This is how to tell whether an egg is fertile:

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

This thread is in the "sticky" in the Incubating and hatching eggs forum, which is the blue box at the top of the page on each forum, in the forum view, the page where you see the titles of the recent threads. You'll find lots of general information in the forum stickies, and in our learning center at the top of the page.

Welcome, and good luck!

 

[ChKnLuvRs]

So these are two different chickens eggs are they fertile.

 

[ChKnLuvRs]

And this one too