FERTILE EGGS 



In the early spring we receive many letters of inquiry from 

 beginners as to how they shall get fertile eggs or why the eggs 

 are not fertile. It is of vital consequence to understand this matter 

 somewhat. 



To secure fertile eggs and strong chicks that will grow and 

 make good breeders, that will be sturdy and vigorous and bring a 

 profit, both the parents should be vigorous and healthy. 



To grow vigorous chickens they must be well born and to 

 accomplish this it is absolutely necessary to have the breeding 

 stock in the very best of health. The females, as well as the males, 

 should have entirely completed the moult. 



The birds should be mature, both physically and sexually. This 

 is a very important matter, for an egg may be fertile and yet not 

 exclude the chick from it; the germ may not be vigorous enough 

 to develop into a chicken capable of breaking its way out of the 

 shell. More than mere size is needed in the male bird; maturity 

 and vigor are necessary. The male should be of large and vigorous 

 frame, well filled out, gallant to the females and ready to fight any 

 intruder. He should have a full, deep voice and have lost the air 

 of immaturity which the young birds always have. He should be 

 ten months old or over, with hackles and sickles well developed 

 and spurs of a fair size. Such a male will fertilize the eggs strongly 

 and produce vigorous and sturdy chicks ; the eggs will not only be 

 fertile, but will be hatchable. 



A male bird which is immature may fertilize many of the eggs, 

 but it will be found that there are weak germs and many of these 

 will never develop, or if they do, the chicks produced will be weak 

 and inferior. Immature males are largely to blame for poor hatches 

 and chicks dead in the shell. A cockerel is usually at his best when 

 he is a year old, and from that time until he is three or four years 

 old he can be used safely. During the breeding season the vigor of 

 the male bird must be watched; he should have extra food with 

 high protein content, that is, extra meat, to keep him vigorous. If 

 mated to eight or ten vigorous females and if he is gallant, they will 

 usually eat most of the animal food away from him, unless it is fed 

 in the dry mash, and suddenly you may discover that the male that 

 is heading your pen has lost strength and vitality with a corre- 

 sponding loss in the hatchability of the eggs. 



Much has been written on the importance of having fully ma- 

 tured and well developed females, but the best females cannot pro- 

 duce hatchable eggs if mated to an immature or weakly male. 



I have found that two years of age is about the best for both 

 sexes, otherwise have a year's difference in the ages of the pair of 

 birds. Mate a one-year-old male to older females, say, two, three 

 or four years older, or an older male to females of one year of age. 

 Here in California I always try to have my male birds hatched in 

 the fall ; this was to make them at their best in the breeding season, 

 fifteen or eighteen months later ; also, I thought that males hatched 



