Trying to Incubate - Most of my eggs are unfertilized

[WaxiChickens]

We have 3 pens with Hens and 3 different roosters. We collected eggs to incubate. 2 of our pens have had great luck with all but 1 egg fertilized in each pen.

The third pen has a Gold Laced Wyandotte Rooster, 4 Gold Laced Wyandotte Hens, and 2 Cuckoo Orpingtons. From this pen, on 2 separate occasions, we have incubated 10 eggs and have only had 1 fertilized the other 9 not fertilized. There is 1 hen he is mating with and she is looking pretty battered.

Is this a rooster issue or a hen issue? We think we need to move him out because he's killing one of our hens, but is there any reason to think the other hens are even fertile?

 

[Tonyroo]

Roosters sometimes have favorites, that hen gets obviously trashed. If your thinking about incubating eggs. You should spend time and watch what's going on. You can also keep notes on who got mated and ones that didn't due to situational behavior.

I think it's better to use some of the eggs for yourself. When you crack them you can identify there fertility, before cooking them. And keep track of the consistency. Instead of wasting time and effort to know what your working with in the incubator.

Just a suggestion.

 

[WaxiChickens]

His name is Presley because he does this little dance when I come around. I have another gold laced Wyandotte rooster in the other pen making barnyard mix chicks. He’s fertilized all but one of his hen’s eggs that we tried to incubate with his first batch and of those we had a 100% hatch rate. I’ve thought about switching them to see if Presley would do better with the barnyard mix hens and see if my other Wyondotte would do better with my wyondotte hens.

 

[Tonyroo]

His name is Presley because he does this little dance when I come around. I have another gold laced Wyandotte rooster in the other pen making barnyard mix chicks. He’s fertilized all but one of his hen’s eggs that we tried to incubate with his first batch and of those we had a 100% hatch rate. I’ve thought about switching them to see if Presley would do better with the barnyard mix hens and see if my other Wyondotte would do better with my wyondotte hens.

Sounds reasonable. Just take a mental note on the progress.