Rooster, Hens and Eggs

awilliams007

Hatching
Apr 20, 2016
1
0
7
I need some help. i have a flock of 6 rooster and 8 hens (5 more hens are coming monday) i was not supposed to have any rooster and was supposed to be given all hens, but i only got 2 hens and 6 roosters. so here is my problem, i went away last week and my friend forgot to collect the eggs, they have been down there for a week now with new eggs produced everyday. what should i do with the eggs? is there any way to tell if they are fertile? should i collect and throw them out? or should i leave them in the coop, the problem with that is i dont know what egg are the fresh ones because my hens only use on brood box. thank you for the help!
 
Do you have a broody hen? If not, those eggs should be fine to eat. I always recommend cracking our eggs into a separate bowl even if you collect them every day, you can get surprises like blood spots or meat spots even if the eggs are not fertile. But unless those eggs have been incubated, there should be no development.

However if you are that worried about it, gather all the eggs, boil them, crush them up, and feed them back to the chickens. That way you are starting over with a clean slate.
 
The eggs are perfectly fine to eat. They'll last much longer than a week (over a month easy) at ambient temps.

Here's a link to photos of fertile eggs to aid you in knowing what to look for:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/16008/how-to-tell-a-fertile-vs-infertile-egg-pictures

That's a lot of cockerels for so few hens. You should eat or give away 4 or 5 of them. The hens will be over bred causing stress and bare backs. Best to have only one or two cock birds with so few hens.

If feeding eggs back to flock I just break them up shells and all in container for them to eat. No need to cook them.
 
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