Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread - Page 302

well not so good news , I should have checked under my broody hen . I got home today expecting to find chicks but when i found none, and my hen was up off the eggs for the first time ( that i saw) ,  in 21 days. I found one dead chick looked smothered , and 21 other eggs , what the heck ,  way to many eggs Im guessing. there was 2 that had piped so i left them under her then I put the rest into my bator . do you think any will make it ? I could here some peeping when i loaded them into bator but i didnt want to take the time to check them all since its should be lock down.do you think the dead one freaked her out ?  She wanted out of the area that i set her up in . then when i opened it up she went back to her eggs i removed all but the 2 that had piped . do you think she killed the one because there were to many eggs under her?This really stinks I was really looking forward to watching her raise the little buggers . any advice or hope would be great Thanks  Tom

Ok my broody hen just got FIRED!...I went out and took her off the nest to get her to do her business, etc...Out of 24 eggs there were 23 left and she had egg yolk all over her face!...If she eats an egg a day there will not be too many left by hatch day!...All eggs are safely tucked in my incubator now!...Hope they hatch!

Well, my broody quit.  She only had 3 eggs left (shipped eggs).  They were due to hatch on thursday (today is monday) but she had been sitting on golf balls for two weeks before I even got her some eggs.  This morning when she got up from the nest I checked and there was a broken egg.  There was yellow (looked like partially cooked egg yolk) on the other two eggs.  I carefully brought them into the house and cleaned them off with a dry towel.  I decided to candle them.  They are marans eggs so it is a little hard to see in them but even still I could see that they were just all liquid inside, no dark mass that would mean a chick.  I decided to crack them open and found one chick that looked like it quit the first week.  Then one egg that had green goo with gobs of some black gunk.  yeah it was super gross.

I left a couple golf balls under her but noticed that she was up off the nest for the third time today.  So I opened her pen door and let her out if she felt like leaving.  Went out 20 mins later and she was GONZO!  lol   She is like "I am so over that".   lol   
I am relieved actually.  I have ameraucana eggs in my incubator that I was thinking of giving a few to her just to break her broody with babies.  But if she got over it on her own well then... good.  She sat for 5 weeks though so she really stuck it out.

Here she is her first week of broody before I moved her into her own place...  She really was a sweetheart the whole time.  She never pecked me, never got fussy with me and was always very cooperative.  I wish she could have had some chicks for all her hard work.  Maybe next time.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/62282_broody.jpg

here is my silkie hens hard work http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/96439_silkie_hen.jpg i hope the pic works aint she pretty

That is a sweet picture, how many 8 or 9?  they are cuties too. Congratulations!!

uhh more like 13 mabye fourteen