how many eggs are fertile?

After a chicken mates how many eggs are fertile? Has anyone ever noticed? Is this a known thing that I don't know but everyone else does so you're all rolling your eyes at how stupid the question is? Or is it just assumed that one mating means one fertile egg until the next mating?

Let me know what you have observed or if you actually know the answer and can enlighten me.

Cheers!

From everything I have read (we had to kill an overly aggresive rooster so it got me thinking about it) you should get fertile eggs for about 7-9 days after the rooster and hen have mated, the eggs laid the following day after mating will start to be fertile. You can tell by the little white part, called the blastodisc if you want to search the internet for what to look for, in the yolk. If the blastodic has a ring around it the egg is fertile. You would obviously have to crack an egg open to tell, but that's really the only way I know of to see if the hen is laying fertile eggs. Hope this helps...

This website has some really good information on everything I said, except for the length of fertility

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/01/facts-and-myths-about-fertile-eggs.html

i always ASSumed it was 1 mating = 1 fertilized egg.

i recently heard that 1 rooster with 8 hens will guarantee all fertilized eggs. i ASSume that means the rooster has to "get to work" daily....



in for better answers...

I find that if I want to cross one particular hen with a different cockerel to the one she's been running with, I have to move her a week to ten days before starting to collect eggs from her again if I don't want to end up with chicks from the 'wrong' dad.

Kelly Smith wrote:i always ASSumed it was 1 mating = 1 fertilized egg.

i recently heard that 1 rooster with 8 hens will guarantee all fertilized eggs. i ASSume that means the rooster has to "get to work" daily....



in for better answers...

I have 2 roosters with 45ish hens. Those roosters "do work" all day. Actually I was watching one of them today as he mounted a hen and then just waited. He was so worn out from humping all day that his mind was willing but his body was weak. He literally just stood on this hen for two minutes working up the gumption to get the job done. The hen looked so miserable too. Finally he just kinda slipped off.
Not all attempts are for breeding purpose. Sometimes it's just a show of dominance.

If looking at the eggs insides is any indication, I'd say they still fail to fertilize some small fraction of the eggs. Maybe 3-5% aren't fertile. That's just going by looks though.

For a fun look into some of the numbers you can see this thread

well, we may never find out because the bloody chicken took off and roosted really high in a tree all night, then when she came down mid morning she took off into the neighbor's perfectly manicured garden. I hope she doesn't scratch it up. I chased her for 2 hours and I have no idea where she is. I was going to let her lay a bunch of eggs and sit on them because she's broody and just see what happens.

I'll update this if I ever find her....

Yaaaaay! she came back, (stupidest chicken ever). BUT there should be fertile eggs in her. Soooo the eggs she lays for the next 8 days I'll keep and check if they are fertile and let ya'll know. I kinda think it's important to know how long a chicken is fertile for after one mating.

UPDATE:

my chicken laid eggs that were fertile up until April 26th(accidentally broke it), I bought her on March 30th. Today's egg was definitely not fertile. So, that's 28 days confirmed fertility!!

Now I've put 12 of the eggs under a silkie/cochin and isolated her in a dark pet carrier to try to encourage her to go broody. In ten days I'll candle and see what's happened.

here's hoping....