Roost mating the hens, infertile eggs

[healtyfeathers]

I have a rooster who has been mating my four hens. I've seen him mate and it seems that he's doing everything he should be doing. I've checked the eggs the hens have laid, and they look fertile (bulls eye). I put 10 under a hen and today when I candled them (at one week) they were completely clear, no veins at all. This is the second time that I've tried to hatch eggs with these hens/rooster with the same results. Has anyone ever experience this kind of situation before?

 

[nchls school]

I have a rooster who has been mating my four hens. I've seen him mate and it seems that he's doing everything he should be doing. I've checked the eggs the hens have laid, and they look fertile (bulls eye). I put 10 under a hen and today when I candled them (at one week) they were completely clear, no veins at all. This is the second time that I've tried to hatch eggs with these hens/rooster with the same results. Has anyone ever experience this kind of situation before?

Your rooster may likely be sterile even though you see him mating with the hens. In the past I had problems like this with my cockatiels. I removed the feathers around the male's vent and the next eggs were fertile. Sometimes feathers get dirty or are overly large preventing successful mating. Good luck.

 

[healtyfeathers]

He is a Brahma, but not an overly fluffy one. I'll have to check his vent area and see if that could be the case. Thanks!

 

[donrae]

I had a rooster with poor fertility once. Nice young splash Ameraucana, good diet, managed like all my other breeding birds. He mated, but fertility was always very low and the eggs that did develop had pitiful hatch rates. Sometimes it just happens.....

 

[healtyfeathers]

What I really want to know is why the eggs looked fertile, but then didn't develop? I broke open several eggs before I set some and could clearly see the "bulls eye". I studied pictures online to make sure I was seeing a fertile eggs. Yet, none of them even started?

 

[nchls school]

What I really want to know is why the eggs looked fertile, but then didn't develop? I broke open several eggs before I set some and could clearly see the "bulls eye". I studied pictures online to make sure I was seeing a fertile eggs. Yet, none of them even started?

As donrae said some roosters are infertile and In some cases the fertilized eggs are too weak to develop; the embryo dies very early in incubation.