Hatching with broody hen, egg question...

[mdkrush]

Ok, I have two coops. One of 1 and 2 year old hens, mostly EE's and some other no EE mixes, 10 hens, 1 EE rooster (Jack).

My other coop is 3 Cochin Hens and 1 Buff Orfinton hen. I have these so when they eventually go broody I can pick the eggs from the EE's I want to hatch and let the others do the work...


So, I only have 1 hen that I want to hatch her eggs with Jack. She is a nice colored easter egger that lays LARGE blue eggs. The thing is that she only lays one about ever other day...

So how can I get enough to put under the broodies and have them hatch at the same time?

Thanks, Rob.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You do need to start them all under the broody at the same time so you need to collect them and store them until you have as many as you want that specific broody to hatch. So when one goes broody start saving eggs. Put a couple of fake eggs or sacrificial eggs under the broody to keep her going while you save eggs. She’ll wait on you to gather eggs.

I suggest you read this. It’s more about using an incubator but it has a nice section on storing eggs for incubation that applies to a broody too.

Texas A&M Incubation site
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/...e-Cartwright-Incubating-and-hatching-eggs.pdf

Personally I find this article to be way overkill for us but it gives you an ideal of what to shoot for. These are guidelines to help improve your chances of a good hatch. You are dealing with living things. You are not guaranteed perfect success if you follow everything to absolute perfection. You are not guaranteed absolute failure if you violate some of these some. Just do the best you reasonably can and you will probably do OK.

For example, I don’t have a place that is the perfect temperature and humidity to store eggs. I keep them in a spare bedroom out of the sun and any drafts from air vents, but that is at room temperature, somewhere around 70 degrees. Humidity really varies depending on the time of the year. I don’t keep them in plastic bags to keep dust off of them, I just don’t stir up dust in there while I store eggs. Treat these recommendations as guidelines not absolute laws of nature and just do the best you reasonably can.

Good luck!

 

[mdkrush]

Fantastic! Thank you!