Methods for determining fertilized eggs

Before laying an incubator or planting a hen on eggs, the poultry breeder is interested in the question: how to determine a fertilized egg or not. Knowing the answer, you can react in a timely manner and replace the rooster.

As experience shows, watching a rooster and fixing the act of mating itself does not guarantee the receipt of fertilized eggs.

How to identify a fertilized egg

An experienced poultry farmer keeps an understudy rooster for safety and lets them take turns approaching the hens. If there is only one rooster, then how do you know if it is good as a producer or not?

In production conditions, everything is simple:

• semen is taken from a rooster;
• determine the ability to fertilize under a microscope;
• inseminate chickens - fertilization of 99.9%.

At home, there are two reliable methods:

1. Incubation method;
2. Method for viewing an opened egg.

Incubating eggs

To identify fertilized eggs, we need:

• incubator or hen;
• ovoscope.

We put the average sample of eggs for incubation and on the 11th day we carry out candling . It is possible to distinguish fertilized eggs from empty ones earlier, but the probability of error is high and experience is needed. On the 11th day of incubation, when translucent, it is clearly visible - empty eggs are light, and you can distinguish them without much difficulty.

Opening the eggs

Unfortunately, this method does not make it possible to hatch chickens even if fertilized eggs are detected.

To determine, it is necessary to select an egg from a chicken and carefully break the shell. Pour the contents onto a flat surface (plate) and examine.

To determine, you need to consider the yolk. We look for the blastodisk (a spot on the surface of the yolk) and determine its pattern. There can be two results:

1. The egg is fertilized - the blastodisc will be round with a dark middle and a light periphery. Figuratively speaking, it will look like a ring. The spot will be large, clearly visible;
2. A fertilized egg is a small spot, light yellow in color, homogeneous.

To not be sorry

Before laying in the incubator, the eggs are ovoscoped for cracks and marbling. A zealous owner determines fertilized eggs by opening it in defective eggs. Defects (cracks and marbling) do not affect fertility, but they are no longer suitable for incubation, they can be sacrificed.

We calculate the percentage

Finding out how to determine the fertilized eggs of chickens by the autopsy method, it will no longer be possible to get offspring from them, but you can determine the percentage of fertilized ones.

Knowing the percentage of fertilized eggs in the incubator, you can plan further actions to accept and settle the hatched young, as well as fuss and change the rooster.

If the percentage of fertilized eggs is high, this does not mean that the chick yield will be high. From the period of fertilization to the moment of hatching, many factors affect the egg:

• the genetic composition of the egg;
• biochemical composition of the egg;
• temperature before and during incubation;
• humidity;
• air speed;
• the period from demolition to the start of incubation.

Of course, no matter what the conditions, an empty egg will not allow you to get a chicken. When it comes to poultry farming and incubation, there is not a single moment that can be neglected. Attentive attitude and a balanced diet of the breeding stock will allow you to get a high percentage of fertilized eggs and a high yield of healthy young.