Why isn't my rooster fertilising the eggs??

[TattooedChicks]

What do u mean by check his fertility??

If he is breeding your hens and fertilizing the eggs, you should be able to see a white dot and a white ring around it somewhere on the egg yolk. If you break a dozen eggs and only have a few bullseyes, you can discern that he is either not covering or not very fertile. If you see lots of them, know you he's not shooting a bunch of blanks. That way you know he is in fact doing his job and can investigate your hatch rates further down in the process.

 

[Mursal Mirza]

Oh yeah!
never thought of that thnx!

 

[chicmom]

Oh yeah! that's a great idea! I have seen him catch some hens in the pen

I bet that'll help! I hope it works for you.

 

[Mursal Mirza]

Yeah me too thanks

 

[lazy gardener]

An other issue is that this breed is known for having a lot of butt fluff. That could be the issue. In order for successful breeding, the male needs to make cloacal contact. If he's got too much fluff going on, or the female has too much fluff, or she does not lift her tail up and out of the way, breeding will not be successful. Perhaps he needs a bit of fluff trim. If it's super hot, that could be affecting fertility. Check your egg fertility before setting eggs again.

 

[Frazzemrat1]

Did read that right? Your little cockerel is almost 2 months old? I don't think he's mating if he's that young... I don't think that's even chicken teenage hood yet.

 

[lazy gardener]

Did read that right? Your little cockerel is almost 2 months old? I don't think he's mating if he's that young... I don't think that's even chicken teenage hood yet.

Good catch. It appears that we ALL missed that. Big difference between 1.8 months and 18 months!!!! Yeah... 1.8 months... ain't gonna happen!!!

 

[Farmgal101]

Hello everyone! I'm new to BYC and chickens.
So my question is why isn't my rooster fertilising the eggs? Well technically he is fertilising them but not frequently as I recently had three chicks hatch out of 9 EGGS!
Does this matter on the breed? If yes then he's a 1.8 month old buff Cochin. And btw I only have 3 hens(most of my hens catches some disease and died ) so I'm not sure it has anything to do with "too many hens." And also he tries to mate with my silkie (who is way bigger than a bantam hen and a little smaller than a standard chicken) but he just tries mating and gives up :/

Thanks in advance everyone

I would consider adding more hens to your flock 1 rooster for 3 hens is a bit much.You should have 10-15 hens for one rooster.This could also help with your problem.

 

[Farmgal101]

your rooster is to young also

 

[TattooedChicks]

Good catch. It appears that we ALL missed that. Big difference between 1.8 months and 18 months!!!! Yeah... 1.8 months... ain't gonna happen!!!

I took it as a typo as writing out 1.8 months is very odd math.