Really dumb question

[gemmat820]

My BBM has been broken, now known as 3BM; but with love. I still have two roosters. When my batch comes out of the incubator should I treat all eggs as fertilized still or is there a season or need for the BM for this to happen? Thanks in advance.

 

[nuthatched]

I'm sorry, can you please explain what you're referring to?
What's your situation?

 

[gemmat820]

I'm sorry, can you please explain what you're referring to?
What's your situation?

Sorry for the confusion. I had a broody bad mom who was kicking eggs out of the best that weren't hers. At some point she was broken from brooding. We've still been getting 3-5 eggs a day from four hens and 1 adult duck and four younger ones. Because of her matricidal behavior we had been removing eggs and putting them in the incubator which is now full. I've just been putting eggs straight to the fridge since.

Current day; our eggs are about 9 day from they're projected incubation date and I'm trying to figure out if we need to keep eggs again or if there is a mating season so to speak for chickens of if because she's not brooding now that all eggs are infertile. I'm learning as I go as I never intended to have roosters or hatch chicks and this side is really new to me.

Thank you!

 

[HeritageFan]

Well....
Putting eggs in the fridge (some people claim) makes them infertile. I’d go ahead and cook those, personally. If they were fertile, you would still be able to tell once they are cracked, by the “bullseye” on the yolk.

I’d also “candle” the eggs in the incubator to verify fertility.
You use a strong flashlight, in a dark room, and should be able to see development of veins, and likely also the embryo by now.

If you see nothing, you can clear out eggs that are not fertile/ are not developing at this stage.... and again at about 20 days.

I’m not clear from your post if you are working w chicken eggs, duck eggs, or both?

Lockdown time and humidity requirements are different for ducks and chickens/ other birds...

What do you have?
...and, I hope these photos help-
These are all duck eggs, a fertile egg that I cracked, and the other two are at about 6 and 9 days along.... you can see the development of veins, and the baby in the last pic. If there are no veins developing at a week, you can decide to recheck at about 10 days, or discard them.

What incubator are you using, and, how often are they being turned?
What is your temp and humidity?
....and, again, what type of eggs are you working with?

 

[FrostRanger]

Just because an egg is fertile doesn't mean you have to incubate it. Incubate what you want to hatch and eat the rest. As far as i'm aware, hens lay more eggs and roosters have higher hormones in warmer weather. However, eggs can be fertile year round. Some hens can lay 300+ eggs per year, if you incubate them all you're going to have a LOT of chickens. Fertilized eggs are just as good to eat as unfertilized

 

[HeritageFan]

Just because an egg is fertile doesn't mean you have to incubate it. Incubate what you want to hatch and eat the rest. As far as i'm aware, hens lay more eggs and roosters have higher hormones in warmer weather. However, eggs can be fertile year round. Some hens can lay 300+ eggs per year, if you incubate them all you're going to have a LOT of chickens. Fertilized eggs are just as good to eat as unfertilized

* heat -can- negatively affect the fertility rate for some types of male birds
Cracking the eggs (and eating them after, of course- or cooking and feeding to your birds)
Is the best way to get to know how your flock responds to the heat

 

[gemmat820]

I’m not clear from your post if you are working w chicken eggs, duck eggs, or both?

Right now, just chicken eggs. Our Mallard isn't mature enough to fertilize yet, so we're going to wait until next spring to try and hatch ducks.

What do you have?

All of the ones that are hatching are astralorp. I had a total of 12 in the incubator and two stopped developing early on. We have one from 7/2 that looks like it quit and the one from 7/4 hatched today. She's seems a bit sleepy and she's lonely being in the brooder by herself but we have one 7/5 that seems healthy and we've heard movement when we hold it to our ear. I expect her to hatch tomorrow or Saturday. After that we have three from 7/7, three from 7/9 and one from 7/10. I only put so many in because they don't do well alone and I was told for my first time I'd probably only get half but again that's from the same neighbor who told me just to put the eggs in as I go.

What incubator are you using, and, how often are they being turned?

I'm using a 12 ct impeckables. I let the auto turn do its thing. I have to turn it back on actually because it auto stopped at three days but I need it to keep turning the younger eggs.

What is your temp and humidity?
....and, again, what type of eggs are you working with?

I have the temp set to 100 and the humidity set to 66. One area I'm failing at a lot is remembering to put water in but I don't think I've let go dry more than once.

Thank you!

 

[gemmat820]

Just because an egg is fertile doesn't mean you have to incubate it. Incubate what you want to hatch and eat the rest. As far as i'm aware, hens lay more eggs and roosters have higher hormones in warmer weather. However, eggs can be fertile year round. Some hens can lay 300+ eggs per year, if you incubate them all you're going to have a LOT of chickens. Fertilized eggs are just as good to eat as unfertilized

We're not just incubating them because they're fertile. It all started with a broody bad mom and an aggressive rooster. We decided to see what would happen so we gathered some and at first put them in a neighbors incubator and then bought our own. We regularly just gather and refrigerate. We never really planned to be in breeder industry it just kind of happened because we accidentally got roosters lol.