Setting eggs to check fertility - not expecting much...

Gypsy07

Songster
9 Years
Joined
Feb 4, 2010
Messages
2,286
Reaction score
84
Points
193
Location
Glasgow, Scotland
My boyfriend's dad has five Light Sussex bantam hens along with one rooster, and got chicks from them about 18 months ago (The eggs were sat on by the hen/s themselves, not incubated). He swapped the cockerel he had then for another one about a year ago, and since then he has had no chicks. He thinks his new cockerel is a dud and wants to wring its neck and get another one. I persuaded him to let me incubate some eggs just to be sure, thinking maybe the cockerel is fine but the hens just haven't felt like going broody in the last year. He doesn't know for sure if they have or not.

So I have set half a dozen of his eggs today. I'm really not expecting anything from them, but I'll wait 10-12 days and candle them anyway. Who knows, we might both get a surprise!

48355_cimg1946.jpg
 
Last edited:
Did you open any eggs and look for bullseyes?

I always do that first!
 
Quote:
Well, I've seen photos and discussions about that on here but to be honest I wouldn't be sure of what I was looking for or what I was actually seeing. My first batch of eggs that I hatched in January, even comparing what I was seeing in my eggs with loads of candling pictures online, it was 14 days before I could really tell the difference between the fertile ones and the duds. So no, I didn't look for bullseyes. Maybe I'll ask him for a couple more eggs and have a go at it...

But in any case I'm quite glad of the opportunity to tweak temperature and humidity settings and practice my incubating skills with free eggs. Even if all of them are infertile I figure it won't be a waste of my time.
 
Quote:
Thanks Lisa. A surprise would be very nice! And my boyfriend bought me the incubator for Xmas. I don't know much about all the different makes and models but I think it's quite fancy - it turns the eggs automatically which is great as both of us work quite long hours and we wouldn't always be around to do it by hand. The first week of my first incubation, I would wait in front of it just so I could watch the eggs being rolled over every hour. LOL! Easily amused, me...
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom