Are All Eggs Fertilized If You Have A Rooster?

Understanding how chickens mate and egg fertilization is important for all backyard chicken owners to know. While hens will lay eggs regardless of whether there is a rooster present, if you want to hatch adorable fluffy chicks, then you will need a rooster.

Are All Eggs Fertilized If You Have A Rooster? While the majority of eggs will be fertilized if you have a rooster, there is still a small chance that the odd egg will not get fertilized despite having a rooster around. However, when in doubt, if you have a rooster, it is safe to assume that all eggs are fertilized.

In this article, we will go over how to tell if an egg is fertilized, if you can eat fertilized eggs, and how to hatch chicks from fertilized eggs.

Table Of Contents

• How Is An Egg Fertilized?
• Can You Eat Fertilized Eggs?
• How to Tell If An Egg Is Fertilized
• How To Hatch Chicks From Fertilized Eggs

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How Is An Egg Fertilized?

There is a myth that eggs are fertilized after laying, but this is not the case. For a hen’s egg to be fertilized, a rooster must mate with the hen. Once a rooster and hen mate, she can lay fertilized eggs anywhere from two days to two weeks afterwards.

So, how exactly does this happen? Let’s talk about the birds and the bees. For starters, neither roosters nor hens have genitals. Instead, they have an orifice known as the cloaca. When a rooster mounts onto a hen’s backside, it drops its tail and its cloacae touch. Then, the rooster releases its sperm into her cloaca, where it reaches the unlaid egg and fertilizes it. Once a rooster mates with a hen, the sperm can be stored within the hen’s reproductive tract for up to two weeks. After this, your hens will start laying fertilized eggs.

Can You Eat Fertilized Eggs?

You can absolutely eat fertilized eggs. Despite being fertilized, you do not need to worry about a growing chick inside the egg unless it’s been incubated. In fact, once an egg is placed in a refrigerator, all development will stop.

We will get into this in more detail throughout the article, but to give you peace of mind. For a chick to hatch, the fertilized egg must sit under a hen or be placed in an incubator for several days before the embryo starts forming and 21 days for a chick to hatch. The best way to ensure your fertilized eggs are not brooded is by collecting them daily.

How to Tell If An Egg Is Fertilized

As we previously mentioned, it goes without saying that without mating with a rooster, your hen will not lay fertilized eggs. However, if you do have a rooster, chances are almost all the eggs will be fertilized.

There are two ways to tell if an egg is fertilized. The first is by cracking open the egg and checking the yolk. A fertilized egg will have a white bullseye in the yolk called a fertile blastoderm. While an unfertilized egg will have a small, irregularly white shape with no halo or bullseye around it, called a blastodisk.

The second method is called egg candling. This is where you use a bright light source to see beyond the eggshell to observe embryo growth. Many people decide to use this method when trying to hatch chicks.

To do this at home, take the egg and hold it up to a lit candle or a bright small flashlight. Around day 7, with a fertilized egg, you should see a dark spot surrounded by blood vessels, while an unfertilized egg will appear clear. If the egg is clear with a dark ring in it, then, unfortunately, the embryo has died.

How To Hatch Chicks From Fertilized Eggs?

The process of hatching a chick from an egg takes 21 days of incubation. There are two ways to do this: naturally or with an egg incubator.

If your hen begins to go broody, and you want to hatch chicks, then let her maternal instincts do their thing. If you notice your hen won’t leave the nesting boxes, pecks at you when you try to move her or get the eggs and reduces its food and water intake, you most certainly have a broody hen trying to hatch her eggs.

To hatch the eggs, your hen will sit in the nesting boxes on top of them for three weeks (which is how long it takes a chick to hatch), rarely leaving the nesting boxes other than grabbing quick food and a drink. She will resume back to normal activities once the chicks are here.

The other method uses an egg incubator. Using an egg incubator will allow you to hatch multiple eggs at the same time. We highly recommend getting an automatic incubator as it will help control the humidity levels, regulate the temperature with a fan and heater and automatically turn the eggs every few hours, which is needed to ensure the chick does not stick to the shell.

Here’s a quick tip when it comes to hatching eggs in an incubator. Some people choose to put their eggs in the fridge to halt (but not stop) the growth of the chick for a few days so they can put multiple fertilized eggs in the incubator simultaneously. It is important to remember that after seven days in the fridge, the hatchability starts to go down. In addition, plan to hatch at least six eggs at once. This number is important as chicks are flock animals and require companions for warmth, socialization, and happiness.