There are lots of reasons as to why you may want to know if your chickens’ eggs are fertilized; it could be to see if your rooster is fertile or to estimate the number of chicks you could hatch or down to the simple fact that you are just curious. So, how can you tell if a chicken egg is fertilized?
The easiest way to tell if your eggs are fertilized is to hold up a bright flashlight right under the egg in a dark room. If there is a dark mass in the egg, it is fertilized. If you plan to eat the eggs you can also crack a few open and look for a “bulls-eye” shape on the yolk; if they have this, then they are fertilized.
Can you still eat a fertilized chicken egg? Are the eggs that you buy from supermarkets fertilized eggs? Let us find out.
How To Tell Fertilized From Non-Fertilized Eggs
How to tell whether a chicken egg has been fertilized or not can be a bit tricky, especially if you are a new chicken owner.
To some people, the thought of eating a fertilized egg can be a bit worrying, but you can eat an egg that has been fertilized without any issues, and it is something that you will have to get used to doing if you are a chicken owner.
This is because if you have a rooster, then you will have fertile eggs, and unless you are trying to grow your flock or are wanting to sell baby chicks, then you are probably going to eat the eggs.
So, if you do not want this, then consider not getting a rooster as your hens will still lay eggs without a male present, but then they will be 100% non-fertilized eggs. However, there are some procedures that you can use that can help you determine whether an egg has been fertilized or not.
The most accurate way to tell if an egg has been fertilized is to crack it open and to look at the yolk. Some chicken owners do not like doing this because if the egg is fertilized, then you could have gotten a chicken from it.
However, if you sacrifice a few eggs and they are fertilized, then the chances of the rest of your eggs being fertile are high, and you can incubate them.
So, what does a fertilized egg yolk look like? Once you have cracked the chicken egg open, you should see a clear “bulls-eye” shape somewhere on the egg’s yolk. This is where the rooster’s sperm entered the egg and fertilized it, and it has now formed a cluster of cells; this is called the blastoderm.
This blastoderm is what will form into the baby chick. If the “bulls-eye” is not very prominent, but you see something that resembles one, then you can place an egg in the incubator for about 36 hours and then crack the egg. The cells should have developed more by then, and the “bulls-eye” will be more distinctive and noticeable.
If the egg does not have this “bulls-eye,” then your chicken eggs are probably not fertilized.
How To Tell If Chicken Eggs Are Fertile Without Cracking Them
If you do not want to take the chance and crack some eggs open because you want to hatch as many chicks as possible. Then you can use a method called candling the egg, which is one of the oldest and easiest ways to tell if an egg has been fertilized or not.
This egg checking method will require you to incubate the eggs for a few days; 4 to 5 days would be best if you can as you need the eggs to develop a bit if they have been fertilized so you can identify the fertilized egg better.
Once the eggs have been in the incubator for a few days, then you need to take the chicken eggs out of the incubator and place them on a soft surface to keep them safe while you test them one at a time. Then you need to hold each egg up to the bright light of a candle so you can see through the eggshell.
It is best to use this method at night or in a very dark room, so you can see clearly what is going on inside the egg.
When you hold the egg up to the light, if you see a dark spot around the middle of the egg as well as some veins that kind of resembles a spider’s web, then the egg is likely a fertilized egg. If you just see the shape of the egg yolk inside the egg with no spider web-like veins or signs of an embryo, then the egg is probably not fertilized.
You should take your time checking the eggs this way so that you can ensure that you identify the fertilized and non-fertilized eggs correctly. The eggs will hold heat for about 15 minutes before they need to return to the incubator.
Once you have identified the fertilized eggs from the non-fertilized eggs, then you can place the fertilized eggs back into the incubator or place them with a brooding hen. If you are placing them with a hen, mark the fertilized eggs with a permanent marker so you do not accidentally collect them again.
The non-fertilized eggs that you identify using this method cannot be eaten as they were sitting in an incubator, so you will need to throw them away or take them into the garden and use a shovel to break them into the soil.
Can You Tell If An Egg Is Fertilized Using A Flashlight?
Testing to see if an egg is fertilized with a flashlight is becoming a popular method among chicken owners as it is a fast and simple way to test the eggs.
This way is similar to the candle test; you first need to incubate the eggs for a few days; the recommended number of days is between 3 and 5 days for the flashlight test. This is to allow the embryo inside the egg to develop enough to be visible to the human eye.
Once the recommended days have passed, take the eggs out of the incubator and place them on a soft, flat surface to keep them safe while you test them.
You will need to be in a dark room for this test, and an easy way to tell if it is dark enough is to hold the flashlight to your hand or fingers, and if you can see your veins clearly, then it should be dark enough to test the egg.
When you are ready, hold an egg up to the beam of light from the flashlight, be careful that you do not look directly into the light, or you can damage your eyes. If you see a dark spot in the middle of the egg with veins around it, then the egg is fertilized.
Once the eggs are checked, then you can put the fertilized ones back into the incubator or with a brooding hen, just do not forget to mark them. Once again, you can not eat the non-fertilized eggs from this test, so throw them away or used them to fertilize your garden.
Are Supermarket Eggs Fertilized?
There is often a concern for people about whether or not eggs from the supermarket are fertilized or not. The good news is that these chicken eggs are not fertilized at all; it does not matter if they are ‘free-range’ eggs or ‘organic’ eggs; they will not be fertilized.
The reason why these eggs are not fertilized is that the hens that lay them are kept in either cages, pastures, or barns, and they are always kept separate from the roosters. Most chicken farmers who are using their chickens for egg production do not even bother to get any male chickens as they do not need them.
For this reason, the eggs that you buy in a supermarket are not fertilized eggs.
Conclusion
If you want to check your eggs to see if they are fertilized, then there are a plethora of methods at your disposal for you to choose from. If you want to know as fast as possible if your eggs might be fertilized, then the best way to do it would be to crack a few open and look for the bulls-eye mark.
If you have some time and you want to maximize the number of chicks you hatch, then the candling or the flashlight method may be the way to go for you.
These ways are simple, and they work, so why not give them a try. Good luck!