Chances are that if you’ve owned chickens, or kept them anywhere near your yard, you’ve seen them lay eggs. Some eggs may hatch, while others don’t. This will make you wonder why some chickens lay unfertilized eggs?
In this article, we will discuss why chickens lay unfertilized eggs and the causes for it.
Why Do Chickens Lay Unfertilized Eggs?
Unfertilized eggs are the result of a hen that has not been mated with a rooster. This is common in backyard flocks, where roosters are rarely used. Unfertilized eggs can also occur when the hen has been mated, but the sperm and egg do not meet up properly.
When a hen lays an unfertilized egg, it will not be as large as normal eggs and may have no yolk at all. The shell is also much thinner than that of a fertilized egg. Unfertilized eggs are typically white or pale yellow in color.
The reason that chickens lay unfertilized eggs is that chickens are sexually dimorphic birds: males and females look different from one another. This is true for both the outside features (like feathers) and internal features (like reproductive organs). For sexual dimorphism to occur, there must be two distinct types of sex chromosomes present in the DNA of an organism (for example XX or XY).
In chickens, females possess two Z chromosomes while males possess one Z chromosome and one W chromosome. Because each chicken possesses two Z chromosomes, this means that it must mate with a male.
What Causes Unfertilized Eggs?
The most common reason a chicken lays an unfertilized egg is that she has lost her mate or has been separated from him for some reason. But there may be other reasons, too:
The hen may be too young to mate with a rooster. The average age for hens to start laying eggs is 16 weeks old, but some will start laying sooner than that! If you recently got new chicks and one of them starts laying eggs before the others, she may just be ahead of her time.
Make sure that your coop is safe and secure from predators so that your chickens can sleep soundly at night; otherwise if anything happens to them during the day.
Roosters Aren’t Needed for Hens to Lay Eggs
It’s true that roosters are needed to fertilize the eggs laid by hens, but it’s also true that hens don’t need a rooster to lay eggs at all. While many people believe this myth, it’s actually false.
When a hen lays an egg, it contains all the nutrients necessary for an embryo to develop. The shell is made of calcium carbonate and forms around the yolk and albumen (egg white) as they move down into the uterus. The shell will harden as it moves through the oviduct until it meets with air and dries out completely.
All hens have ovaries that produce hormones that stimulate ovulation (release of an egg from one of the ovaries). These hormones trigger the process of laying an egg. A hen does not need a rooster present in order for her to lay eggs, but she does require stimulation from him in order for her body to release these hormones in preparation for laying an egg.
How Long Does It Take To Create an Egg?
The process of creating an egg, from start to finish, takes about 21 days. In the first seven days of this process, the hen’s ovary releases an ovum (or egg yolk). The yolk is then surrounded by albumen (egg white) and encased in a shell made from calcium carbonate, which forms when the hen adds calcium to her saliva.
The shell then travels down through the oviduct and into the cloaca — the chicken’s equivalent of a uterus. It remains there until it’s ready to be laid.
How Many Eggs Can Chickens Lay?
The average hen lays about one egg per day. Some hens lay more than this, while others lay less.
If you have five hens, you can expect to get about five eggs per week (assuming the flock is healthy). So if your goal is to feed your family with fresh eggs, a flock of five birds should be sufficient for most needs.
How many eggs do chickens lay depends on a number of factors:
The breed of chicken – Some breeds are known for being particularly good egg layers; other breeds just aren’t as good at it. For example, Plymouth Rocks are known for being better layers than Rhode Island Reds or Australorps.
The age of the hen – Hens that are younger than 18 months old tend to produce fewer eggs per year than older hens do (although this varies between breeds).
The season – Hens lay more eggs in spring and summer than they do in fall and winter (again, this varies by breed).
How To Tell if an Egg Has Been Fertilized
To tell if an egg has been fertilized, you have to look at the albumen. When an egg is first laid, it has a thick white layer called the vitelline membrane that surrounds the yolk. This membrane starts out clear, but as it ages and dries out, it becomes cloudy. If a hen has been inseminated with semen from a rooster and begins incubating her eggs, this vitelline membrane will begin to darken and turn opaque after about 12 hours of incubation.
If your hen has not been inseminated with semen from a rooster, then there won’t be any signs of fertilization in her eggs at all.
So, how to tell if an egg has been fertilized?
To test whether or not an egg has been fertilized, place it in a bowl of water. If it floats, it has been fertilized; if it sinks, it hasn’t been fertilized and should not be eaten. This is because once an egg has been fertilized, the nutrient content changes (as does the taste), making it lighter than water.
If you’re still unsure about how to tell if an egg has been fertilized, here are some things you can look for:
Visually check for blood spots on the shell and inside the egg white (if any). Blood spots are caused by ruptured follicles during ovulation; they’re not harmful but they do indicate that there may have been a problem with ovulation — which could mean that your body wasn’t able to produce enough progesterone to thicken your uterine lining during ovulation.
In Summary
Unfertilized chicken eggs are a natural process that occurs in chickens. There are multiple reasons why these eggs appear, but the most common is that the rooster simply didn’t fertilize the egg, and it was not caused by any sort of health or environmental issues with either the rooster or the hen.
