Oh my gosh!!! The boulders were an absolute nightmare when I was building the coop. I had to change the dimensions several times to work around them. I have pictures somewhere. Ill post if I can find them. I was using crow bars and trying to dig them out...didnt help that the ground was kinda frozen and what looks like a small rock ends up being only the tip of a mountain once you try to dig it up. LOL!
Wow it really is hard to see which is a good thing for me. I don't want my neighbors complaining about a fence.
That's why we did it that way. We also put it behind trees and secured it so the chickens have woods in their run.
Guess what guys, not a single egg from my flock is fertile
The person who I got him from said before they sold him to me that he was definitely fertile and that the reason I’m not getting any fertile eggs is because it’s winter...
Personally I’ve never had an issue with fertility in winter and I know all my hens are 100% fertile themselves.
This new Male has been with the hens for almost 2 months now and still not a single fertile egg.
Maybe I’m missing something but I’m pretty sure I’d have at least one or two by now?
I’m starting to think he is infertile.
Out of the 11 silkie eggs I have that are due today six babies hatched so far. Three are not ready yet but are doing good, hopefully they'll be out today or tomorrow and 2 quit on day 20. The two who didn't make it didn't get into hatching position so they still had their head between their thighs. One I could tell was already dead this morning and I tried saving the other one but it was too late, it had already absorbed most of the blood vessels and hadn't started breathing yet so even though I got its head free it didn't switch over to using its lungs before the blood vessels finished absorbing.
I wish I knew what was causing the malpositions, it could definitely be storage, I had to store them in a warm room unless I wanted to refrigerate them (maybe that would have been a better option). I had better luck from another breeding pen earlier in the year so I can't rule out my rooster either. I'm hoping nutrition is alright, they get a 20% protein crumble, free choice oyster shell and I give them poultry vitamins in their water at least a couple times a month. I hadn't wormed them yet when I was collecting these eggs but I wormed for the first time about a week ago and will do a follow up in a few days (not sure if they needed it but I've heard good things about doing a couple routine wormings a year).
Here are the babies so far.
View attachment 2024269
My current silkie boy took over a month to fertilize anything (I can't quite remember how long it took it might have been a couple months). It's been over 2 months now and after the latest batch of eggs I set I know he's still not getting everything fertilized yet. My hens didn't seem to be very receptive to him after he made some clumsy attempts at mating in the beginning. I've had other roosters pick it up a lot faster as well, I guess some are just slow.
I hope your new boy is just a bit of a slowpoke and not infertile.
Are they a barnyard mix?
