What does a hen do with her unfertilized eggs?

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/what-does-a-hen-do-with-her-unfertilised-eggs-10100975.html

by mac01021 • 9 years ago

49 44 9 years ago

independent.co.uk

looks like the story stopped just before answering the question in the title

lsaferite• 9 years ago

Yeah, this is why I came here as well. I was hoping that maybe someone posted the answer to the question I didn't know I wanted an answer for until I saw the article.

colanderman• 9 years ago

I'm pretty sure they eat them so as not to waste nutrients.

tomjen3• 9 years ago

parents had backyard chickens for years. Unfertilized, or even fertilized eggs as the was majority of modern chicken aren't going to lay on them until they hatch, are either eaten or ignored.

gwbas1c• 9 years ago

Does the hen just try to sit on the eggs and give up at some point?

jackhack• 9 years ago

It depends on the particular bird, but some species will sit on eggs, even to the point of their own starvation. "Broody" is the term -- referring to a general nature to sit on and nurture eggs, working themselves into an almost hypnotic state. Chinese Silkies are known for this. Buff Orpingtons are also good "hatchers."

I have to go in and collect eggs, and pet on my birds to rouse them from their broody state, then force them out of the henhouse to go eat & drink. Otherwise she'll literally sit there on those eggs all day & night.

After a while, the hen might break the eggs and eat them. A way to train against this is to 1) never let it happen (remove eggs promptly) so they don't develop a taste for eggs or 2) give them golf balls to sit on.

Birds go through phases. Very broody for a few months, then disinterested, then back to broody, eating eggs for a while, ignoring them, etc.

marcosdumay• 9 years ago

They do give up shortly after some eggs hatch, what is a problem if you mix eggs with different maturity.

Some hens learn to eat the uncollected eggs, what is also a problem because they don't know beforehand what eggs will hatch either, and start eating them at random.

If the eggs are left there, some animal will inevitably come and eat them. What is also a problem, because they will learn there are eggs there, and will not care to only look for abandoned ones.

Overall, it's not healthy to not collect the unfertilized eggs.

mac01021• 9 years ago

I think this probably mostly answers the remaining part of the question: http://articles.extension.org/pages/65600/what-happens-to-un...

But really I posted this hoping some resident of hacker news who grew up on a poultry farm will come along and tell us what's what.

msisk65• 9 years ago

Actually they have it right at the beginning. Hens don't know if an egg is fertilized or not. Most will just lay and leave. Some go broody and will sit on the eggs until they hatch. Some hens will sit on the eggs (and collect any nearby eggs and sit on a pile of them) until they die if they don't hatch.

We have about 100 birds and at any given time two or three will be broody. We collect the eggs everyday so sometimes the broody hen will just sit there on nothing or on one of our "fake" eggs (we put fake eggs in the places we want the hens to lay their eggs). We'll remove the broody hens from the coop several times a day until we break them of the habit. That usually works.

Occasionally we'll have snakes get into the coop and eat eggs. If the snake gets a porcelain fake egg that pretty much the end of that snake eventually. Rattlesnakes are more difficult, but we've gotten pretty good had removing those, too.

Our big problem this year is hawks (our chickens free range). We've lost about 20 birds this year just to hawks. Just this last weekend hawks killed three (flew away with two and mostly maimed a third I had to cull) and one hen got away missing her tail feathers and received some deep cuts our vet stitched up. She got away because our dominate rooster attacked and killed the hawk after her.

gadders7• 9 years ago

In the UK, the big problem is foxes. We have an electric fence and automated coop door closer now. We also have a guy that enjoys shooting and roams the fields round our house shooting them.

pavel_lishin• 9 years ago

our dominate rooster attacked and killed the hawk after her.

Damn, I didn't know that could happen.

iamthepieman5• 9 years ago

What do you do with all your eggs and how many eggs per day do you get per 100 birds?

We are fortunate that we don't have a snake problem. We do have red and golden hawks though and they fly around after our neighbors chickens. They haven't lost one to hawks yet though as they have a large guard dog which seems to be effective.

deathanatos• 9 years ago

Actually they have it right at the beginning. Hens don't know if an egg is fertilized or not.

I hate to nitpick you here, but the person you're replying to is correct, and it's really not at the beginning of the article. Like you reiterate, the article states that the hen doesn't know — which is sensible (how would the hen know?), but doesn't answer our question: "What does a hen do with her unfertilized eggs?"

The article does answer the question for the case of a non-brooding hen: the hen doesn't brood, so not much of anything. But I think a lot of us were more interested in the case of a brooding hen, and the article then tells us about the process for a fertilized egg, which, while interesting, doesn't answer the question.

(I would guess that most of us that were raised in more urban areas believe that most or all hens brood. I did not know that some did and some didn't, for example.)

You, and other commenters in the thread, have thankfully given us closure w.r.t. the question by posting, though.

stuartaxelowen• 9 years ago

They eat them.

matheweis• 9 years ago

Only if you don't collect ethe eggs quickly or you've been feeding the chickens shells...

msisk65• 9 years ago

Yeah, you don't want that. We cull the hens that start to eat eggs.

jlebrech• 9 years ago

it's how hens are supposed to get their calcium back. without that they have brittle bones like a kfc drumstick.

have_faith• 9 years ago

This is an edited answer from What does a hen do with her unfertilised eggs? which originally appeared on Quora

Is the Independent sourcing editorial from Quora now? I assume when you answer a question on Quora you give up all rights to the content. I wonder what sort of arrangement they have.

mason240• 9 years ago

The Independent had an ownership change recently and dramatically shifted from journalism to click bait.

gadders7• 9 years ago

There also isn't a print version of the Independent any more, just the tabloid "I" newspaper.

scandox• 9 years ago

I would cross the street not to have to say 'a hen' or 'an hen'. Both make my tongue trip.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/629/when-should-...

iamthepieman5• 9 years ago

We currently have 26 five day old chicks in a cardboard box in our mud room. We are raising them to lay and, eventually, brood so hopefully I'll be able to answer this question in about 9-12 months or so.

This is the first time I've ever raised layers though 20 years ago as a teenager, my brother and I raised 100 birds every spring for the family freezer.

An interesting thing about the young chicks, even at 3 days old they were acting exactly like adult birds- making dust baths, establishing a pecking order and even attempting to roost though the only thing elevated in their box is their feeder.

kbutler• 9 years ago

We've done this a few times - both incubating from eggs and receiving chicks mail order. Incubating and seeing the eggs hatch is awesome, but it's also pretty fun to pick up a cheeping box at the post office!

However, it won't be very long until you want them OUT of the mudroom ASAP. The dust and smell from poo and feathers and whatever else gets bad quickly. Not a nice addition to breakfast.

Note that I do seem to be more irritated by it than other family members who like pets more.

Diederich• 9 years ago

... but it's also pretty fun to pick up a cheeping box at the post office!

One of the highlights of the years we lived in an extremely rural county in the midwest was the yearly call from our rural post office. This is exactly what was said when we picked up the phone:

"Diederich? Postmaster here. Your birds are at the post office. Thanks, bye."

iamthepieman5• 9 years ago

Picking up a madly chirping box at 7A.M. from the post office is certainly a magical experience.

And yes, as soon as I juggle my cats out of the basement, the chicks are moving down there.

caio1982• 9 years ago

I don't understand why you were being downvoted but please write a report somewhere and post it here next year, and good luck with the chicks! Just remember to take good care of them, and provide a decent, clean, natural environment for the animals while they live.

iamthepieman5• 9 years ago

We have two acres (1 acre cleared) and don't use any pesticide or herbicide in our yard so I'm sure they will have plenty of natural forage to supplement their grain and room to stretch their legs.

Our biggest concern is the local wildlife which includes mink, weasel, raccoon, skunk and fisher cat. We've seen every one of those creatures on and around our property so I'm trying to devise a critter proof chicken coop to put them in at night and wondering if I should get a dog as well.

gadders7• 9 years ago

We incubated a bunch of chicks once, and they all died except one. Knowing they don't do well on their own, we had to buy another day old chick and put them together.

Even at two days old, they started fighting. One chick would wait for the other to start to nod off, and then peck it in the eyeball. We had to put one under a colander for a while until they got used to each other.

iamthepieman5• 9 years ago

my wife was afraid of killing them through some error or omission. We had one little runt (30% smaller than all the others) that we were sure was doing poorly. It refused to move and just sat uncomfortably under the heat lamp chirping like it's life depended on it.

Then yesterday it started behaving normally and is doing great apart from being small. Inexplicably, the same day, I found one of the big healthy black orpington chicks lying unmoving next to the feeder and it perished an hour later.

wycx• 9 years ago

They get off them and then a crow swoops in and steals them. It was never a sure thing as to whether we would get our backyard chickens daily eggs or if the crow would.

gadders7• 9 years ago

Looking at our 20 hens, they typically ignore them once they have been laid.

The only exception to this is if the hen has become broody, then they will sit on them virtually 24 hours a day trying to hatch them. The chickens become very docile when they're broody.

rotexo• 9 years ago

that's interesting, I always got the feeling that hens were more aggressive when broody. When one of my family's chickens was broody, I made chirping noises after forcing her out of her nesting box, and she made a loud clucking noise and charged at me (I assume because she thought I had her chicks)

camtarn• 9 years ago

And for a bit more detail on what actually happens inside a chicken while it's forming the egg:

https://vimeo.com/86122048

Birds are surprisingly complex biological factories - especially the bits of their internal 'production line' which rotate the egg-to-be to twist membranes into shock-absorber-like suspension structures for the yolk.

gadders7• 9 years ago

//Offtopic - we've just started to raise 8 goslings, and they are completely different temperament to geese. Much friendlier and less flighty.

gadders7• 9 years ago

I meant different to chickens, of course. Bloody work interrupting my posting.

What does a hen do with her unfertilized eggs?

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