Wheaten woes

[Jessica Rodgers]

I was reluctant to post this as I don’t care to have my issues all over the internet but I wish more people would post their issues so we can all learn from them so here I go… I apologize in advance for the length of this post…


I’m having difficulty with fertility/eggs developing. The ones that do develop I get about 1/2 to hatch. The ones that die in shell are about day 18+ and are usually not positioned correctly. I see movement in the egg when I set them in the hatching tray.
I usually set some Wheaten Olive Eggers as well and they are nearly 90% success rate for development and hatch-ability. They pop out like popcorn! I monitor my parameters in the incubator closely and I can see on a graph any fluctuations.

Flock stats:
Wheaten/Blue Wheaten flock started from one cock and 2 hens 6yrs ago. It was unknown at the time how related the cock was to the hens. I started by breeding siblings from my original trio (eggs from the 2 hens were separated) then I created a third family with one of the families so 2 family groups are closely related. Then I started rotating the males.
Females age range from 1-5yrs old
Males are 1yr and 4yrs old.

Pens are made up of one male over 3-5 females, one pen does have an additional 8 strictly layers on top of 5 Wheaten hens. Surprisingly that pen has the best fertility but also has a 1yr old male over them. Fertility still isn’t that great but workable. Everyone eats Natural Farm Feed “broiler” feed and I recently started adding Fertrell breeder supplement again + beef tallow as the oil. They always have access to oyster shell and grit. Everyone has access to pasture either with a movable fenced area off the main coops or they are in a movable tractor.

So the big question is did I do something wrong? I try my hardest to keep vigorous birds. Everything gets wing banded and I take notes and don’t keep birds that show weakness or get sick. I know adding new blood is a possible quick fix, I have a few birds from an unrelated side project that I can use but I was keeping them separate for now and I’d like to keep my current line going. I’ve heard a number of Wheaten breeders over the years have had similar issues with their line. Possibly Silvers too?

So, another question arises: Does the Wheaten variety in particular tolerate a closed flock/no outside blood added like some other varieties and breeds?
I’ve seen comments here and there over the years about other breeds not tolerating closed flocks and I’m  wondering if Wheatens fit into that category?

I know the subject of adding new blood or not can be a hot topic so let’s keep the discussion respectful please 🩵