Now obviously if you want them to produce hatching eggs then you'll need a rooster to fertilize those eggs. Well, he actually fertilizes the hen but that's a story for further down in this post. For now, let's stick with egg production.
Do you need a rooster for hens to lay eggs?
When hens are old enough to lay eggs they will produce eggs without a rooster. Hen become old enough to lay eggs at around 4-6 months old, depending on the breed.
It's similar to how a female human of reproductive age produces an egg every month. Or how female white tail deer produce eggs and go into heat (estrus) every spring. Dogs and cats do the same.
In fact many female fish lay eggs in the water and then the male comes along and fertilizes them. So when you think about it it's really pretty common in the animal kingdom for the female to be able to produce eggs without a male.
The only difference with chickens is that they produce an egg daily as opposed to monthly, yearly, seasonally or even several days in a row then stopping to incubate the eggs like wild birds do.
If these eggs are not fertilized they cannot develop into offspring and they get disposed of in one way or another. In the case of fish, birds or reptiles other creatures may even eat them. Some animals actually look for those eggs as a food source.
Squirrels are pretty well known to raid bird nests and eat the eggs whether they're fertilized, partially incubated or not! It's one of the reasons you don't want to encourage squirrels to hang out around your chicken coop!
So it's quite normal for females to produce eggs without a male around and chickens are no different. In fact, most commercial egg farms don't even have roosters at all!
In their opinion the roosters simply don't make them money because they don't lay eggs and these companies are in the business of selling eggs, so they jus skip the roosters entirely!
Fun fact: the hen gets fertilized before the egg does!
How do chicken eggs get fertilized?
The interesting thing about birds (including chickens) is that the female is actually fertilized during the mating process and then she stores it in sperm storage tubules (SSTs) then distributes the sperm to the eggs as they are being moved through the oviduct.
If the female did not mate successfully, then the egg passes through the oviduct without becoming fertilized. But if she did mate successfully then the egg becomes fertilized as it passes through. Once these fertilized eggs are laid they can then be incubated and hatched.
Because of this storage method it's common for a hen to lay fertilized eggs for 10 days after mating once! Basically, she doles the sperm out to the eggs as needed.
This is also why when creating new breeding pairs you'll have to give the hen 2 weeks after the last mating to be sure the sperm is cleared from her body before you can mate her with a new rooster and be assured of the resulting chicks parentage.
Technically you can allow her to be bred earlier than that but wait till 2 weeks out to start collecting and incubating her eggs!
Ok, that's it for the biology lesson! I promise LOL
Both domestic chickens and wild birds will lay eggs even if they are not fertilized. In both the hens may then try to sit on those eggs and hatch them because something in their brain doesn't click that the egg is or isn't fertilized.
Also some wild birds never lay eggs even though they have successfully mated. Weird right?
Just because you don't need a rooster in your flock doesn't mean you don't want one though! You may want one for protection of the hens, because you like crowing at 6 am or just because they're often very pretty!
Why you may want to keep a rooster for your hens
There are a few reasons that you need a rooster in your flock and I talk about them in 4 reasons you need a rooster for your hens. You should go read that article, but to recap:
- 1) Protect the hens
- 2) Fertile eggs and hatching chicks
- 3) Find food for hens
- 4) Somebody has to be the boss!
1) Yes, the rooster will do what he can to protect the hens from predators. This often means that the predator gets the rooster instead, but he willingly sacrifices himself for his girls like my Rusty Roo did when a bear came around!
Sometimes a rooster manages to scare a predator off like my Mr. Copper did when a hawk tried to pick up a silkie hen and Copper jumped right on his back and spurred him causing him to drop the hen and fly off!
They easily keep away small predators like cats and squirrels and will often sacrifice themselves for larger predators.
2) If you have a rooster and your hens are producing fertilized eggs then you can hatch those eggs for more chicks! You can even let the hens hatch and raise chicks for you to make things so much easier!
Or make some money by selling the chicks produced by your flock! I make about $1,000 a month doing that!
3) Roosters will forage for food and call the hens over when they find something tasty. Since he wants the hens to see him as a provider he actively searches for bugs for them. The less bugs in my yard the better so I always keep a rooster around!
He will also call them over when I throw out scratch or other treats for the flock...which is just too cute to see!
4) Having a rooster to run the coop can keep pecking order drama from getting out of control and believe me, that pecking order drama can get bad!
Lots of people don't want roosters because you're paying to feed a chicken that doesn't lay eggs, however in many flocks a hen will take over rooster duties if there is no rooster and she will quit laying eggs, start crowing and even imitate mating hens like a rooster does!
Of course you don't get fertilized eggs from two hens, but since she's not laying eggs you might as well get a rooster and let her revert back to factory settings. lol
Bonus: Roosters are really pretty! They're also super easy to replace because chickens tend to hatch at about a 50/50 hen to rooster ratio and most people want many hens and only a few roosters.
Check any chicken group, swap or auction and there will be many roosters up for grabs and they're often very cheap or free!
So while you don't need a rooster to get eggs from your hens, there are a few reasons why you might want to have one. As long as you can have one, I think you should...but don't go breaking HOA rules for it!
Do you have a rooster in your flock? Why or why not? Leave me a comment and lets chat about it!
Want to know more about raising chickens? Click here for my most read chicken keeping articles!
~L
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