Selective Hatching for Certain Traits?

Selah

In the Brooder
7 Years
Sep 6, 2012
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I have searched through the forum, but could not find any threads regarding this topic, so...
We bought our very first chicks this past spring at the local Tractor Supply, after constructing a tractor coop from tips/pics/info from this site. We purchased a dozen, nine of which are reds & sex links, three of a lighter colored egg/meat type, all pullets. The three lighter colored "pullets" started crowing and jumping hens few months later:/ The three "hensters" are actually very handsome fellows, Buff Orpingtons by the look of them (one of them is my profile pic). Now that we happen to have ready access to fertile eggs, we are in the process of constructing an incubator:D

SO, here is my question. One hen lays very large eggs, of very high quality. Some (maybe 30%) of those are double yolks (which we like) but not all. I know that it is not possible to hatch a twin egg, but by incubating the large singleton eggs of that hen, would her female offspring also have a higher tendency to lay double yolk eggs?
Is there any way to candle for twins...or at what point would they be overcrowded and stop developing? (I can see the potential for a stinky mess here).

Thank you all for this site!
 
welll, is they are under a year old its pretty common for production layers or high quality layer chickens to produce doulble yolks. whats happening is the chicken is gowing through changes and producing eggs and the body is still trying to figure everything out.. sometime two yolks will be brought down the ovaduct creating a double yolked egg, its really something you cant genetically put in chicks unless you were to do for a very long time! but i might be wrong thoough!!! thats all i know about double yolks.. on the whole hatching twins thing, in the wild it is absolutley unheard of for those chicks to surive, mabye one in a million! but if you are carefull and complete all the steps for a succesfull hatch you could mabye MABYE succesfullyy hatch them... the only downside is they would be mal nourished and much tinier then the normal chick, also theres no saying if one of the chicks had dide and the other chick obsorbed it.. non the less YOU would have to hatch the egg, , now i don know if twins get two air sacks or not but im guessing not so twins cannot hatch on there own you would have to check for peeping and try to open a little hole for the other chick on the other side, if they stay in the egg like that for more then two days you immiedatley have to start cracking the egg open, NOW i really i really recomend waiting if you hear peeping to NOT open the gg yet! peeping just mean it has found the air sack, if you were to open the egg you would find a chick with a big yellow bloody mees hanging from his abdomen (been there done that ): ) thats the yolk, the chick will surley die if it doesnt absorb the yolk so make sure to have patience! :) once you have waited a day or two and you have started cracking the egg open crack little pieces of really slow if the chicks arnt moving or trying to help get them selves out, wait and go check on them half an hour or an hour later, this is a very loooonnnnggg process for just two chicks that you could easily just have from two eggs, i would recomend not but if you are willing to put the time and effort in then go for it! also dont get your hopes up either, twins are extremley hard to keep alive and healthy if you do though ( which is possible!! :D ) MAKE SURE TO POST PICTURES ON BYC!! :) i hoped i helped a little bit! i might be entirley wrong about some stuff and thats why i love byc you get advice fomr lots of people!!
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Thank you so much for your reply birdherder! I think I will try it by gathering the large eggs and incubating them, the goal not being to try to successfully hatch a twin (I am not sure it is possible from what I have read), but to produce hens with an increased tendency to lay double yolks. I believe it is just one hen who is doing it, as every day there is one very large egg, which is a double yolk about 30% or more of the time. Whether double or not, the egg is always very large.
Thank you for the valuable hatching information! I am going to gather the big ones, and then start incubating on the 23rd. I will be sure to take pics, success or no. If I can get them to hatch and successfully raise them, I should be able to see if there is any selectable trend toward the laying of double yolk eggs sometime next year. Of course this means building another tractor coop and parking it elsewhere on the farm so I can be sure of a difference (or lack of difference)...woohooo, more chickens!
 
I have tried hatching a double yolker before, they died around day 10. I would love to try again, but I rarely get them. It is posible, but you would need to help them hatch like berdherder said. Just to show you that it is posible, click on the link. It's a youtube video in which she sucessfully hatches a double yolker.

 
WOW!!! Just...WOW!!!
Thank you for that link cochins1088...it made ME nervous just watching the video! Things I have read said it was not possible...hah! Gotta give it a whirl:)
 

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