Chicken owners please respond if you know

[backwoodsnanny]

My friend was here this afternoon and asked a question I will post to you. If an egg is a double yolk egg and is fertile will two babies hatch if it is placed in an incubator?

 

[dgrminis]

I dont have chickens and am no expert by any means but we did talk about this when I was in college (couple years ago) and I remember that we were told it is very rare for twin chicks to hatch out of one egg and that double yolk eggs are generally just better to eat instead of trying to hatch since most are lost anyways. If they do survive they are generally too small and die shortly after hatching and that is if they make it to hatching...

Maybe someone who has actual experience will have some better input

Good luck if they you have one and try and hatch it out

 

[jayne]

The funny thing is....it's the white that turns into the chick and the yolk that feeds the chick while it's growing inside the egg. I probably wouldn't try to incubate a double yolker, as I have seen chicks hatched with weird used-up yolk-like things in their chest area and they didn't make it. I always wondered if it was the result of a double yolker.

Now that's an interesting question you bring up. If the egg was fertilized twice would it develop into two chicks, one using each yolk? Would two chicks develop in the one shell? If one was of a more scientific type and willing to deal with potentially sad results, it might be interesting to incubate one and see what might happen.

Gee, I can see I was absolutely no help whatsoever! I'm hoping other people chime in on this one!

Jayne

 

[baybrianna]

my cousin says no it cant have two chicks hatch

 

[Sterling]

I have actually had a couple of double yokers in my breeding and hatching...and in my experience...the double yoke egg never hatched. Not saying that there's not a possibility that they ever would, but they never did for me.

Here's some interesting info:

http://www.poultryhelp.com/oddeggs.html

 

[Sterling]

The funny thing is....it's the white that turns into the chick and the yolk that feeds the chick while it's growing inside the egg.

Hi Jayne....I just wanted to point out. Actually the white of the egg as we know it is a substance to help the chick when growing and forming and is composed of water, protein and antibacteria fluids. The actual "chick" is a flat disc like cell that forms when fertilized.

When an egg is not fertilized you still have the yolk and the whites...just not the fertilized "disc".

 

[Sonya]

I have had two chicks in an egg (incubator) that of course never hatched but when I cracked it open there were 2 bodies in there, I'm not sure the yoke makes a difference though.

 

[StellaLenoir]

I go to another website Backyard chickens and if you go to the forum there is a thread about a twin hatching attempt. It is an older post but I bet you can find it if you search.

It is a very neat website with lots of good chicken info. The attempted twin hatching was not successfull in this case. They followed it and posted progress reports and such. They candled the egg and saw 2 chicks ect, but in the end it ws one big one and one weird one I think.

Check it out and good luck!