Hens do not need roosters to lay eggs!! Hens lay eggs regardless of whether there is a male around. The only reason a rooster is needed (see any similarities to the human species, here?) is for reproduction - cute, fuzzy, baby chicks!!!
For cute fuzzy chicks, here is a brief synopsis of the reproductive process.
They have similar reproductive systems to other species; the female produces the eggs inside her body and the male produces sperm inside his body. They mate in a similar fashion to other species; in this case the rooster pens the hen down and climbs on her back and places his cloaca (opening) against hers. After the sperm has gone into the hen's cloaca, it flows up a tube, called the oviduct, toward the eggs. After being fertilized, the egg will travel down towards the hen's cloaca. On the way down the "white" is added to the yolk and as it nears the end of it's journey a soft shell forms around the egg to act as protection. The closer it gets to the end, the larger the egg gets and when it reaches the cloaca, then hen pushes it out of her body and an egg is laid. In this case, it is a fertilized egg! Inside the egg is a speck where the sperm joined the yolk; this speck becomes a baby chick, but only if it is incubated for 21 days. The hen will sit on her egg to keep it warm (incubate) or a farmer with many hens will perhaps keep the eggs in an incubator. The eggs need to be turned to make sure heat gets through to the whole egg.
Hens will begin to lay eggs on their own after they are about 20-22 weeks old. We have 4 hens and we now are at a point where we get 4 eggs a day, usually in the morning. We have one lady who seems to go by her own schedule and she lays her egg a few hours after the other three have done their duty. My son will wait outside the nesting box for a hen to lay her egg. The problem is he likes to open the door a lot and "check- in" on the progress. He is patient enough (and probably annoying enough to the hen on duty) and soon he walks in with a warm brown egg. Well worth the wait. So far we have used the eggs for our morning breakfast, but today I plan to try then out in a cupcake recipe.
Many people like the idea of a REALLY fresh egg and others are a bit turned off by it. For those who may be turned off by it you will be happy to know that there are two separate ducts; one for eggs and the other for waste, but one shared exit. Waste never comes into contact with egg, due to duct design. The eggs we get look as if they are right out of your grocer's refrigerated section.
For this post, I used information from the following sources:
Ridout, Ronald and Michael Holt. The Life Cycle Book of Chickens. New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap 1974.
http://www.angelfire.com/oh/ZebraDirectory/chickhome/index.html
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