Keeping chickens at home for eggs

Fertile Eggs

The first method of creating fertile chicken eggs with a hen, as obvious as it may seem, is by having a cockerel, which is an immature male bird of less than a year.

Hens can lay eggs without a rooster/cockerel however these eggs will not be fertile. Allow the cockerel to run with the hens around 3-4 weeks before you begin to collect the fertile eggs. As a warning, you may encounter a broody hen. This is a hen that will not want her eggs taken away refusing to leave the nest getting rather hysterical when you go near to gather the eggs.

The trick is to allow her to keep a clutch of eggs then watch her fulfill her ambition of becoming a mother which is always nice to watch. After, she rears those chickens she will at this stage sit, hatch and rear anything that comes in a shell usually without further issues.

Alternatively, you can purchase fertile eggs to put under the hen as opposed to acquiring a cockerel. There are numerous sites on the Internet which sell fertile eggs as well as some pet stores, you can also ask around locally if you are in a rural area as well as look in poultry sections of farming papers. This alternative also offers a benefit of rearing fancier and rarer breeds of chickens if that is your objective.

An ideal egg should be smooth, strong, free of any blemishes and of an average size. Watch out for over sized eggs they could contain double yokes. Double yolks are of course twins, and incubation of twins could lead to fatal problems when hatching such as being in the wrong positions, unable to peck properly out of shell and ultimately dying inside shell.

Once you have chosen your healthy looking egg, remove and store in an egg box in a cool dark environment. Follow this removal process until you have gathered the number of eggs you wish the hen to sit upon. The average hen can sit happily upon 8 to 12 eggs at a time. However make sure that the amount of eggs you put under are well covered by the hen.
 

Article supplied by  Les Smith, Gale Farm, Pembrokeshire