My young orpington has laid a few eggs this week. She has been running with a sumatra and a brahma. These are her first eggs. I just bought my first incubator and have ameraucana eggs on the way. My question is, will a hens first ever eggs be normal enough to try to hatch?
Some of the hens first eggs are just too small and the chick prob will not make it. To test fertility crack open an egg and check for the bullseye ring on the yolk. See pictures here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16008
I'm pretty sure the eggs are fertilized. My two roos are very "energetic". The sumatra has laid 14 eggs in her lifetime (about a year) and she hatched every one of them 3 months ago. I can't bring myself to open to check fertility. I can't really tell which egg belongs to the orpington. They're about the same size. Which I believe will change as the orpington should have large eggs, right? They're the only 2 hens I've seen in this spot. Still haven't found any from the 2 australorps or the brahma...bet they're in the woods. They're all going into the incubator and I'll know in 3 weeks.