Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hi all, I am starting my first incubating project next week. I have 2 Whiting True Blue roosters and 30 hens (mulitple varieties). I have 3 Whiting True Blue hens and 6 Ameraucanas laying light green eggs. I would like to incubate the blue and green eggs, so I started collecting yesterday, storing them properly, and done my homework.

My big question is, while I see my the Roosters are doing their job, I don't hang out with them all day, so I don't know how often and to whom they are breeding with. In your experience, what would you estimate the likelihood that they are getting to the girls that I am collecting eggs from?

Should I try to isolate that group for the week for better results, or not worry about it?

Thanks!

The hen number is a tad high, I personally prefer 6-8 hens per rooster, but they will cover more.
I have found that collecting eggs for couple of days and checking fertility, which requires many egg meals to be served, will give you much better idea of what the fertility is before you start collecting for incubation.
Also would give you a chance to separate smaller group if the fertility isn't there yet.

If you want to ensure they are fertile just separate the 9 hens you want to collect from and put one of the roosters in with them.
I've seen one Ameraucana rooster cover 100 hens and all were fertile it depends on your rooster. Sometimes 2 roosters together decreases fertility as one rooster will push another rooster off the hen hes trying to breed.

Last year, with my first successful hatch, I had 80% fertility with 1 rooster and about 18 hens. Meaning I collected 15 eggs and 12 showed chick development on the 10th day during candling. I'm thinking that's not too shabby.