For the last few years, we've had layers and no roosters (other than meat birds in a different coop). Sunday we were helping a local family butcher their chickens for the first time. They had a young barred rock rooster that got loose and they said we could keep it if we wanted. I like him and he seems to look after the ladies great.

This morning my daughter took some eggs to her mothers house and said nearly half of them had blood in them. I always though if they were bloody they were fertilized and fairly old. But we haven't even had this rooster a week AND I'm not sure when these eggs were laid. A quick google search said it does not mean they're fertilized, it means a vessel or something bursted when the egg was forming, but that wouldn't explain why several chickens would suddenly do that when they NEVER have before. It seems like the rooster HAS to be the cause.

It don't bother me, but I sell extras to people I work with that would absolutely freak out so I'm trying to figure out what is causing it.

ahhh ok.... maybe just adding the rooster to the mix... maybe they'll adjust ok once they are used to him jumping on them from time to time. LOL Nothing else has really changed. Thanks!

Well the one that didn't get out of their little cage did get butchered, but there sure wasn't much to it. We were doing Cornish Rocks that were huge and the barred rock looked just as big til I scalded him and threw him in the plucker. He came out looking like a little pigeon!