Will my hens lay fertile eggs

[Imammusa]

So my hens are about the egg age but the roosters look pretty young though they are the same age. So my question here is will they lay fertile eggs? And yes I saw one of the Roos mating with the hen

 

[DobieLover]

So my hens are about the egg age but the roosters look pretty young though they are the same age. So my question here is will they lay fertile eggs? And yes I saw one of the Roos mating with the hen

How many cockerels to pullets do you have?
Why are you interested in them laying fertile eggs at this age?
Yes, they will very well lay fertile eggs coming out of the starting gate. The boys always begin mating the girls before the girls are really ready for it.

 

[Imammusa]

How many cockerels to pullets do you have?
Why are you interested in them laying fertile eggs at this age?
Yes, they will very well lay fertile eggs coming out of the starting gate. The boys always begin mating the girls before the girls are really ready for it.

I want more of them that’s y k want fertile one and I have 6 pullets and 5 cockerels

 

[CluckerFamily]

That’s a lot of cockerels to pullets, they will over mate your hens and cause stress, feathers missing which leads to pecking. Make sure your chicken first aid kit is stocked and you have ways to isolate the pullets and cockerels for time periods when they can’t be with the flock.
You would be able to get rid of all the cockerels but 1, and still have fertile eggs. I have 17 ladies with 1 rooster. My rooster is for protection and not necessary for fertilizing the eggs, if I wanted to a rooster for fertility, I would need another rooster or two.
A lot of people don’t use fertile pullet eggs to hatch chicks, they wait until the eggs are a normal size.

 

[Imammusa]

That’s a lot of cockerels to pullets, they will over mate your hens and cause stress, feathers missing which leads to pecking. Make sure your chicken first aid kit is stocked and you have ways to isolate the pullets and cockerels for time periods when they can’t be with the flock.
You would be able to get rid of all the cockerels but 1, and still have fertile eggs. I have 17 ladies with 1 rooster. My rooster is for protection and not necessary for fertilizing the eggs, if I wanted to a rooster for fertility, I would need another rooster or two.
A lot of people don’t use fertile pullet eggs to hatch chicks, they wait until the eggs are a normal size.

Is it bad to hatch them
Please shed some light on this

 

[aart]

Is it bad to hatch them
Please shed some light on this

Hatching eggs from newly laying pullets can work,
but it's better to wait at least a few weeks... or months for better chances at healthier chicks.

But get rid of all those males....and if you can't, then you shouldn't hatch any eggs as half of them will be males too.

 

[Imammusa]

Hatching eggs from newly laying pullets can work,
but it's better to wait at least a few weeks... or months for better chances at healthier chicks.

But get rid of all those males....and if you can't, then you shouldn't hatch any eggs as half of them will be males too.

Ok thanks

 

[Ridgerunner]

So my hens are about the egg age but the roosters look pretty young though they are the same age. So my question here is will they lay fertile eggs? And yes I saw one of the Roos mating with the hen

This thread has photos and tells you what to look for to determine if the eggs are fertile. If most of the ones you open are fertile, most that you don't open should be too.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/16008/how-to-tell-a-fertile-vs-infertile-egg-pictures

But, yes, they can and will lay fertile eggs. That's part of the issue.

Is it bad to hatch them
Please shed some light on this

A little more detail. The internal egg making process is pretty complicated. Everything has to work correctly for the egg to be put together in a way that it can hatch. Many pullets get that right from the start but it is not unusual for a pullet starting out to lay some pretty weird eggs. You might see thin-shelled, soft-shelled, or really hard-shelled eggs. They can be no yolk, nothing but yolk, or double yolked. Sometimes they are just weird. And this is the stuff you can see. They have to do a lot more correctly that you can't see for the egg to hatch if incubated. To me it's surprising how many get so much of this right straight from the start.

Also, when a pullet first starts to lay the egg is usually really small. The pullet is often not fully grown when she starts to lay. Her body may still have some growing to do or her internal egg making factory may need to mature a bit so the egg is all there. Her first eggs being small is nature's way to protect her from consistently laying really big eggs that can possibly harm her. The eggs do grow in size the longer she lays.

Many pullet eggs will hatch, I have hatched them. My hatch rate is not as good with the small pullet eggs as it is with eggs from pullets or hens that have been laying longer. If you try to hatch them, expect more failures. That can be that some don't develop, that can be that they develop but die before hatching.

Since the eggs are smaller there is not enough nutrition in the egg or room in the egg for a larger chick to develop. So the ones that do hatch are small. Practically every chick I hatch lives and does well, but occasionally one dies. I find that a chick that dies often hatched from a smaller pullet egg. It wasn't strong enough to survive or it may have a birth defect that let it live for a while but then killed it.

If you try to hatch pullet eggs you can usually get some to hatch. Manty of those that do hatch live and do OK. But I find that I do much better if I wait until the pullet has been laying at least a month before I try to incubate any eggs. Waiting longer helps more but at least a month.

 

[Patric china]

So my hens are about the egg age but the roosters look pretty young though they are the same age. So my question here is will they lay fertile eggs? And yes I saw one of the Roos mating with the hen

Yes they will be fertile

 

[Imammusa]

I got rid of 3 males leaving my six girls with 2 but then now the two are fighting really bad. They are injuring themselves. I think I have to get rid of 1 again