Hen Breeding

[wantabe]

This is my first time writing on this message board and I haven't had time to read a lot of the messages...so I apologize if this is being repetitive.

My question is related to the frequency a hen needs to be bred. Does a hen need to be bred each day during the breeding season to lay multiple eggs? Or does a hen need to be bred once to lay a full nest?

My reasoning for asking is this: Where we are hunting in So. Illinois we are seeing the hens stay with the Toms all morning. This is unusual, in past years the hens leave the Toms around 9:30 or 10 to sit on their nest. If there is an imbalance of Toms to Hens we were speculating that there aren't enough Toms to "service" the hens and thus the Toms have company all morning. Any thoughts?

[RayC]

Hen only needs to be bred once (the result can be stored for 28 days or something like that), that doesn't mean she won't br bred again though. If they usually leave at 9:30 or 10:00 it would be to lay an egg (they don't sit , as in incubate, until all the eggs are laid). I'm not sure how things are going where you are , but here in CT they seem to be a little late do to s l o w warm-up this spring. Only in the past week have I seen single gobblers with small groups of hens, prior to that is was many strutters with a lot of hens

[Buckeye Mike]

Rayc is correct on the breeding part. They have even done studies and found that different poults from the same mother in the same clutch were fertalized by different gobblers. I guess its just natures way diversifying.