Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[Chickielady]

There's a 6 foot fence between thank God. I don't want my chicken anywhere near their's. There is have terrible living conditions and God knows what diseases they have going on over there. My chickens don't seem to pay much attention to him at all.

 

[Chickielady]

This is what my Easter Eggers think of 6 foot fences.

 

[Chickielady]

Primary reason I don't want a rooster, besides living in suburbia and being neighborly, (no crowing at all hours of the night etc) is for eggs to eat, Having a roo makes the eggs inedible for my GF and I. My coop and run is not big enough to keep them separate.

why ?
There is no difference whatsoever in fertile or non fertile...of course as long as you dislike crowing...you do not need a male to have eggs !

 

[Chickielady]

This has nothing to do with the previous conversation. I was just cracking some eggs for dinner.

I find this hilarious that the boys are persistent against impossible odds. This is a brahma egg. Those girls are 9 pounds. The roosters in there are 2 pound silkies.

Nice pretty bullseye on the top so it's fertile!

 

[Chickielady]

I have a friend who want to eat brown eggs because she says there are little black specs in the yolk. So of course I had to go bust one open and try to stare at it and find a little black specs. Since I am blind as a bat I actually use my magnifier, still couldn't find any black specs.
She has silkies. Do silkies lay white eggs?

Little tiny blood spots in the egg are not the "fertile" part.
many people think that tiny blood spot is a forming embryo and it is not true.
The tiny blood spots are blood clots released when the hen's egg releases from her ovary...these clots are called "egg meat" and big commercial egg farms high power candle all their unfertile eggs and remove any with egg meat in them, and those go to pet food.

Because so many people think the tiny clots are embryos !

So even if you have no rooster, your hens can still make eggs with "egg meat" clots in them from time to time.

EGG MEAT....we can see many kinds of egg meat also, sometimes the hen has an issue (fear or a shock or travel while she is ovulating) and the egg is very bloody.
This is just a rupture in the ovary during its detachment to be laid.
The Ovaries are up under the hen's back, and if you have ever butchered chickens you would have seen them, millions of tiny eggs, in various stages of development, on their way to be laid.
Here is what they look like if you remove the ovary:

The largest one will detach from the ovary, and travel to the Urerus where it is covered with a shell, also called the "shell gland"

Cool, huh ?
When 2 yolks pop off at the same time, you'll get a double yolker.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Quote: @Knoble Chickens it must be a mental thing that you don't want fertile eggs to eat but if you came to me for eggs
how would you know if they weren't or were ?

 

[pennyJo1960]

Quote: cool gonna save your photo future use

 

[Chickielady]

These are welsummer and marans.

They should not be that hard to sex at all!

Marans can be wing sexed...females develope 2 distinct rows of flight feathers and fledge generally all over...whereas males will have "bald" spts with just fuzz...and not develope wing feathers as fast.
When males do develope wing feathers, they are 1 row at first.

We like to do the sock test, too...it is fun !

Ball up a sock, and toss it over the box of chicks, and the cockerels will stand up on alert, and the pullets will run & duck & hide.

Old wive's way to sex chicks.

Wellies can be sexed the same as all "wild type" or "chipmunk" chicks are sexed...generally the males are lighter...a small light V on the head, and no eye liner.

The pullets will have darker stripes & eye liner running from the side of the eye back.

 

[pennyJo1960]

like the old wive's personally

 

[Hinotori]

If someone doesn't want to eat fertile eggs that's their prerogative. Doesn't bother or effect me.

I don't care if they are or aren't. Doesn't change the taste. Now Mom thought for the longest time that the little blood spots was indication of fertitlity. She would pick them out (still does). I explained what they were and showed her the difference between the blastodisc and the blastoderm. (From white spot to white bullseye)

Friend was getting eggs from us and complained they were fertile. I was confused as those girls weren't with a rooster at that time. She thought the chalazae were rooster sperm. Apparently she was used to getting old eggs from the grocery store where the chalazae has broken down. Yes I'm a bad person because I laughed before explaining the parts of an egg.