Is it OK to incubate eggs from young hens?.......And other questions about fertility and incubating.

[tankerman]

Is it OK to incubate eggs from young hens?

I'm ready to start incubating, the eggs we have are a mix of eggs from new layers and established hens. The eggs from the young hens are a little on the smallish side.

Do the smaller eggs from the young hens hatch the same as larger eggs from older hens?

If the smaller eggs do hatch, will they hatch small chickens?
Will they stay as small chickens, or grow into normal sized dult chickens?




We got rid of all our rooster but one. So it's one rooster with 33 hens.
Is it possible that he get's around enough to ensure we're got a good % of fertile eggs?

The rooster in a Fayoumi, hens Black Jersey Giants, Americaunas, Australorps, Fayoumi, Rhode Island Reds and some unknown breed that isn't what the feed store advertised.

we're hoping to get some Black Jersey Giant/Fayoumi crosses.

Thanks for the help

 

[cochins1088]

Depends how young. I would give a hen a month to lay before incuabting her eggs. If she's been laying for a month and the eggs are a bit smaller they shoud still work. The eggs will not hatch smaller chicks, though there is a small posibility of the chicks growing to big for the eggs and being unable to hatch, so I guess it depends on how much smaller you are talking. So a small egg will give you a normal sized chicks and a normal sized hen if all works out. As far as the rooster, it depends on your rooster. There are some that seem to do their job very well, while others will pick a few favorites and ignore the rest. The only way to tell is to start incubating and then candle them at day 7 and take out the infertile eggs counting them so that you can get your fertility rate for the next hatch.

 

[groundpecker]

To get a good fertility rate, you would need to put the rooster and 2-4 hens in a separate pen.

Wait a week or two before incubating the eggs.

The chicks that hatch should grow to the size of the parents.

There will be a bit lower hatch rate using pullet eggs, at least in my experience.

 

[Twisted-Rooster]

Seems to me the young hens need to be laying for awhile before you set the eggs...

 

[tankerman]

The rooster is very active (on top of hens all day long). Some of the hens really like his attention and lay right down for him, others run, squawk and won't sit still. So I'm really sure which ones may end up fertile.

Our flock is a variety of ages and breeds that mature at different times, so we're not really sure which birds are laying which eggs.


Between the batch that went in today, and what I'll collect tomorrow, there'll be 42 eggs in the incubator, hopefully at least a dozen are fertile.

If we don't have much success with this batch, then I'll move to segregate a few hens in a pen with the roo.