Stupid question-I want a rooster...but no fertile eggs..ideas?

[Sunny Side Up]

You'd be making extra work for yourself and making your beautiful rooster miserable if you kept him penned separately from the hens. I like keeping a rooster with my flock, they help the hens find good food and signal when there's danger.

Like the others have said, there's no difference in appearance or taste with fertile eggs. The life in them stays in a state of suspended animation unless they're continually kept in a particular amount of moist heat, the kind they get from an incubator or a broody hen. If you're collecting them every day or two they should not begin to develop at all.

Do a search on blood spots & meat spots to learn what they really are. They're not found in every fertile egg, and can appear in sterile eggs too.

You won't open an egg one day & find a developing chick, not unless you dared to pull one out from under a brooding hen. And if you ever did, you wouldn't have enough fingers left to crack the egg into your frying pan.

 

[ranchhand]

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The only difference will be in the white dot- and unless you planning on hatching, you don't need to worry about it. No extra floaties or yucky stuff, just delicious, fresh eggs!

After you get your roo, give him a couple weeks to adjust, and then ask about incubating! We'll have you hatching in no time!

 

[gritsar]

I won't free range without a rooster and all my egg customers know that I have a roo. He makes his presence known whenever anyone drives up to the house to buy eggs or any other reason.

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

You have received all of the right answers. And yes, you will come to the dark side, you will get the urge to hatch eggs and have baby chicks.

It is impossible to avoid.

 

[danielbrown]

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You may get a "Blood spot" in an egg, but thats nothing to worry about either. My non fertile sexlink eggs have those sometimes.
I've found them in store bought eggs too.

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

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[ranchhand]

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And then you'll end up like me, running a rooster ranch........

Not necessarily true, but I am becoming famous for having lots of roos!

 

[lilbirdee]

Alrighty then!
Thank you all for setting me straight.
I guess my preconceptions had the best of me.
This coming from the lady who said for a year "no chickens!"
Finally my husband convinced me. Fist I said 4 chickens. 4 is plenty. Then I started buying them and well you all know how it goes. Now I have 20 in assorted breeds. And I LOVE my chickens!!
I am absolutely in love.
And now that I am very suspicious that one of my Buff Orps is a male, I don't want to get rid of him like I'd said would if I ended up with roosters.
Now I'm actually hoping that it is a roo. And I will have fertile eggs and yes I definitely get addicted to hatching eggs and oh my...I'm thinking I'll have to build another coop.

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

if you got $150.00 you can sometimes find a vetto do the caponizing as it is a operation
and no fertile eggs are not noted as any thing wrong with the eggs because nothing is growing in a egg before it is set on by hen or incubstor

the fact that having a rooster is not bad as he will only mate with so many o his favorite hens not as many as you have
so you can safely say they are not all fertile
you need to go to
http://www.google.com
and enter
picture of fertile eggs
the web sites of many boards and colleges have the qactuql pictures of fertile eggs

Just explain to your egg buyers theses eggs are gathered several times a day
so no chance of them spoiling

if you don't make a big deal out of it the egg buyers won't either

you can study up and learn about poultry husbandry first before egg buyers come

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

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You are hooked.. Welcome to this crazy world that only BYC people can understand.