Trying to determine egg fertility

[BrandonsBirbs]

Wait, I'm left in the back trying to see what yaw'll see in the yokes. I don't see nuttin'!!!

 

[Hip Hillbilly Acres]

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Cool beans, way to educate a sista! Thank you.

ETA: You know I'm gonna be looking at every egg I crack from now until eternity, right!!!!

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Cool beans, way to educate a sista! Thank you.

ETA: You know I'm gonna be looking at every egg I crack from now until eternity, right!!!!

I try everytime I do but I'm rubbish at it

 

[Hip Hillbilly Acres]

I just might go in there and crack an egg to see for the heck of it now!!!!!

 

[DonyaQuick]

Guess it will just take some time for fertility to happen with that hen.

I may be waiting longer than I'd hoped. I've started taking my chicks out with broody mama to dust bathe and forage by the coop as part of the long, gradual integration process ahead. The hen I want to hatch new eggs from has started going ork-ork-ork when she can see the chicks, and tonight I just found her sleeping in the nest box. I really hope seeing the chicks hasn't turned her broody right when I'm looking to get fertile eggs from her...

 

[Tonyroo]

If she does go broody you probably should snap her out of it. Can't be fertile sit on a nest.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well I'm in a bit of a pickle now. My hen is definitely broody. I'm not really equipped to do broody breaking since I already have a different mama with babies using the spare enclosures. And I have a grain mite issue in the background that I just dusted/sprayed for.

I did some cooking with a couple eggs from the hen I want to hatch from. One I'm pretty confident was a bullseye (yes!) although another was infertile. I guess it's just going to be a coin toss with her. Whether that's down to biology or behavior I don't know.

Since I saw that one fertile egg from her and she just this morning went broody today to a degree that I think I won't get any more eggs from her...I'm thinking of putting her last few eggs in my incubator. She laid an egg a day leading up to sticking on the nest; a couple were ones I checked for fertility but I think I have 4 other more recent ones. I can incubate them while waiting on the grain mite thing (I may need to spray again) and letting my girl set up shop with ceramic eggs in an otherwise unused nest area. In theory I could then do an egg swaperoo if any of the incubator ones look promising after 7-10 days, and if not then I could break the broody behavior. I have a feeling if I wait until after the last round of permethrin and then wait until I can break the broody behavior with spare equipment and then wait again for her to resume laying and then probably wait yet again to find a fertile egg...I might be a tad late in the year and would probably have to wait til spring anyway. So I feel like I don't lose much having a go with 4 of her eggs from now even if they're duds.

 

[Cool_Catrules456]

Well I'm in a bit of a pickle now. My hen is definitely broody. I'm not really equipped to do broody breaking since I already have a different mama with babies using the spare enclosures. And I have a grain mite issue in the background that I just dusted/sprayed for.

I did some cooking with a couple eggs from the hen I want to hatch from. One I'm pretty confident was a bullseye (yes!) although another was infertile. I guess it's just going to be a coin toss with her. Whether that's down to biology or behavior I don't know.

Since I saw that one fertile egg from her and she just this morning went broody today to a degree that I think I won't get any more eggs from her...I'm thinking of putting her last few eggs in my incubator. She laid an egg a day leading up to sticking on the nest; a couple were ones I checked for fertility but I think I have 4 other more recent ones. I can incubate them while waiting on the grain mite thing (I may need to spray again) and letting my girl set up shop with ceramic eggs in an otherwise unused nest area. In theory I could then do an egg swaperoo if any of the incubator ones look promising after 7-10 days, and if not then I could break the broody behavior. I have a feeling if I wait until after the last round of permethrin and then wait until I can break the broody behavior with spare equipment and then wait again for her to resume laying and then probably wait yet again to find a fertile egg...I might be a tad late in the year and would probably have to wait til spring anyway. So I feel like I don't lose much having a go with 4 of her eggs from now even if they're duds.

Hows it going?

 

[Mr Spot]

View attachment 3200923

How old are these eggs that you can see that in ?

 

[DonyaQuick]

How old are these eggs that you can see that in ?

For mine at least I've seen the bullseye in fertile eggs that are 24h old to a couple weeks. I don't know what best practice for time range is though.

Hows it going?

Sadly all 4 eggs I set are duds I think. There's one week left according to the incubator and all are still glowy without obvious veins. They're brown enough it's hard to see detail so I'm not counting on seeing veins, but the glowy-ness just seems wrong at this point. That space should surely be filled. A couple looked like they had a darker dot forming and then stopped, which is basically the same thing that happened with the eggs that were under my other broody, so I don't think it's a problem with the incubator and makes me wonder if this hen might not be able to make viable chicks. I didn't crack her other eggs open when I did my first hatch; probably should have. I will give this current set the whole time in the incubator just in case I'm unusually terrible at candling, but after that I think I may need to crack them open to see what happened.

I had originally been thinking I might get a couple last-of-the-season chicks of whatever is local folks have to give her if this happened. I'm getting cold feet on that though because it looks like my first hatch gave me 1 cockerel and 3 pullets...which is kind of perfect if it really is that and I don't have other late bloomer cockerels in that batch. I kind of don't want to risk ending up with 2 nasty soup cockerels. To go pullet-only I think I'd have to get 6 pullets if I get them sexed from TSC or similar - and that's just too many if they even still have them in a week. Still, I do have worries that my chick-less broody is not going to take the transition well and may be exceedingly hard to snap out of this while she's still hearing chick noises from my current batch. I'm really not sure what to do.

Meanwhile I have total chaos with the rest of my flock...broody breaking will be impossible while the chicks are around so I haven't even tried. But with two hens out of the social loop, the other three and my rooster have now fallen out and there is all kinds of drama. I also apparently have not enough active birds digging to compost the substrate in the enclosure properly so this is all just going very well...*sigh*

EDIT: should mention that I'm making sure my chick-less broody is eating and drinking well. She's in good health. I'm not just letting her sit and risk starving herself.