How soon will a hen's eggs be fertile after a visit from a rooster?

Our 6 chicken hens have never been around a rooster. I am thinking of introducing a rooster to the hens so I can later incubate eggs. The hens are just now 2 years old, and will be replaced before winter. So I thought I would hatch some of their eggs.

Here is another question. How long will fertile eggs be produced after the rooster has left? The rooster will only be with our hens for 1 weekend, possibly another visit the next weekend. This is a proven rooster from a friend if that helps.

Thanks for your help.

The first fertile eggs will come no sooner than about 25 hours after a rooster breeds a hen.

The hen can produce fertile eggs up to a month after breeding.

Keith

Since it takes about 7-10 days for the sperm to travel to the ovary where they fertilize the ovum as it is released, a chicken won't have fertile eggs for at least a week after she is first mated. She will continue to lay fertile eggs for about 6 to ten days after she has last been mated.

off the internet

What you posted the link to says, "Since sperm is released shortly after an egg is laid, and each egg takes approximately 25 hours to develop, an egg produced on the day of mating will not be fertile. An egg laid the next day may or may not be fertile, depending on the timing. An egg laid on the third day definitely should be fertile.".

You can have fertile eggs starting at 25 hours after the first mating.

Keith

From many, many years of experience and observation, if you want to have consistent success breeding chickens, put the rooster in and incubate starting a week later. Do not rely only on a single weekend, I would keep the rooster in at least a week or more.

After he leaves, eggs will stay fertile up to a week if you want high rates of success. Also, eggs will stay fertile for up to a week on your kitchen counter. So out of your 6 hens, you should get maybe 35 eggs to potentially hatch out. (Five a day times 7 days)

If you don’t want or care about success, do not follow my advice! Lol We have never had trouble using this model.

Thanks for the information guys.

A weekend?

That's like putting a 17 years old young man with some college grades.

apparently - the answer is anywhere from 2 days before you get the rooster until 7 weeks past the end of time.

Reminds me of the story about an old spinster who wanted to produce hatching eggs. But after multiple failures contacted her extension service to troubleshoot the problem. Turns out she had the right ratio of hens for rooster and a healthy fine rooster so the extension agent was puzzled. He asked her how the rooster behaved around the hens. She replied I don't know, I put him on the roost with hens every night and take him out to his own quarters every morning at dawn!

Hard to say. How motivated is your rooster.