The birds and the bees, er... chickens
by Kelli Bowen
After my last blog post about our decision to incubate some the eggs from our fallen flock, one of my adult friends asked how we can do that. My friend didn’t understand how an egg gets fertilized. Because if there’s one who has questions, there are generally more, I shall explain.
Send the children into another room, pull the blinds, and keep the smelling salts handy… oh calm down; it's just nature. 
Okay so you take one male (rooster) and a female (hen). The hen produces an egg. The rooster does not. The rooster and the hen touch vents (chicken reproductive parts), where the rooster gives his sperm to the hen.
The hen can actually store sperm for weeks. When the hen develops the egg white and shell, the sperm is added to the mix, and Ta Da, a fertilized egg.
So if you have a hen who has been exposed to a rooster within the past few weeks, you may have a fertilized egg. Now just because there’s a rooster with a hen, doesn’t guarantee a fertilized egg.
In our personal “egg lab” in our basement, which is now what I’m calling our basement, so I feel better about all of our critters and critters-in-development that are down there, we have about 10 out of 18 growing.
If you’ve ever wondered how an egg is fertilized, I hope this provides a little clarity. When the hen lays the egg, nature has already decided if it’s viable. Fertilization does not impact the egg’s edibility. It just means that under the right brooding conditions: temperature, humidity, and time, the fertilized egg would start developing into a chick.
There you go: the explanation of the birds and the bees, except it’s hens and roosters. I think I’m going to go make a pile of scrambled eggs…
The babies are developing feathers and getting some outside time.
Kelli, a North Dakota girl through and through, has made her home from the eastern prairies to the western badlands with her supportive Hubby, two daughters, and ever-growing menagerie accompanying her along the way.