the entire flock is sitting on the eggs

[backyardwitches]

I am afraid to move her but offered some water from a cup and she had a few gulps..
I changed the food (i left her some sunflower seeds and and grain a couple of days ago - it's her favorite) to baby chick feed and put a small dish with pebbles and water for the babies.
One boldly peaked at me with her curious little yellow head, I think I saw a darker one two.. so they are at least two!!!! so happy!!! the other mamas are going insane, and refuse to sit in the new nesting box I made for them...:\

 

[soydo]

Congrats!

The only reason I suggested lifting the hen is because if they are on the nest for too long, they will poop in the nest. By this point she might have already? Since the hatch is in progress it's basically a 'never mind it's a done deal' by now.

If she is not a fighter, there is no harm in putting your hand under her to feel the eggs- if all have already hatched and are dry, you can move her out now. As long as the chicks are standing and all fluffed out they will be fine with leaving the nest.

Did you candle the eggs? For example if only 4 were fertile and growing and you are seeing 4(dry) chicks, it's no use keeping her locked up anymore.

Mother and babies do need to be out of the nest by tomorrow morning, even if she doesn't seem to want to leave. If she leaves and the chicks can get out, great! If not- pick her up and collect chicks and move them to wherever you want them to be.

 

[backyardwitches]

chicks are still hatching, maybe I should wait for her to be ready to take them outside the nest, I will let them stay in the hen house until they are all moving around (it's closed off from the rest of the birds), it's small space a little over 3x3 ft + 2 nesting boxes.

One of the others is constantly scratching on the door and flying over the nesting boxes.. I put a small orange ball in the temporary nest but only the rooster hen took any interest and although I am fairly certain she will not lay an egg, she went to sit there on top of it. I try to chase them away, we have a big yard and they are free to go whenever they want but they are all glued by the coop..

 

[backyardwitches]

so this morning, they are 3 healthy looking, very curious fluffy chicks and 3 eggs with no signs of hatching. I know one of the eggs will not hatch for certain, and one I took by mistake and kept away for few hours on day 2, but looked healthy when candled on day 11. The third one I never managed to candle because the shell is so dark and hard, I couldn't see anything..

Chicks were pecking around last evening, but the hen refuses to move and they are too scared to be fully exposed.. I only see heads, buts or feet, but they never venture outside their mom's feathers. I offered her some food and tried to tempt her out with treats this morning but she doesn't care.. She's been sitting for so long I am not sure she is able to stand at this point and I can probably get her out of the nest (she is super mellow) but then what will happen with the other 2 eggs that might or might not be getting ready to hatch? Should I steal the lighter one and candle again?

 

[lightchick]

If you pick up a egg and hold it to your ear you should be able to hear tapping and/or feel them moving around (if they are hatching). I try to candle the lighter egg.
You could also try this.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ng-egg-viability-for-late-or-overdue-hatching

 

[soydo]

Yes candle those eggs.

You NEED to physically move the hen and chicks and also block the nest. Do it, don't go about thinking she's down or knows best, or chicks are too scared etc. She's a chicken and she may well be very glad to be finally out of the nest.

If she lets you, move the chicks first to ground then move hen.

 

[backyardwitches]

I tried to move her, twice! I moved the eggs! she just ran back to the empty nest and started calling the chicks to her... they ran after her and back to the nest.. so I removed the separation from between the two nests and they now have quite a spacious area of the two nests combined.. she lets them run around, even showed them how to eat and drink from the small dishes I places in the second nest area, but she just streches her neck to get some food and water and doesn't even stands up.. she doesn't like the yellow chick very much and keeps pecking her on the head every time she starts to make too much noise.. and then proceeds to push her under herself and tuck her in like an egg. The yellow baby doesn't seem to be hurt though.. I hope she doesn't mean to hurt it.

I candled the eggs, the infertile one was very obvious and I removed it and cracked it to show the kids. The other one that I can see in.. I am not sure, I can see the veins and the air sack and there is a lighter part on the top, but didn't see any movement.. I tried to be quick about it. The last egg is very dark green and I didn't even try to see it, but there are no cracks and I totally don't get the floating method.. I hear no peeps either

 

[JennieRD]

in your situation I would probably have obtained a chicken or rabbit hutch, or similar type cage with legs and placed moma and nest in the cage with food and water leaving her there until the chicks were big enough or old enough to put on the ground. I have had similar problems in the past with poor results. I do the same with Guineas only I leave the tops open for the entire duration for the flock to visit with the babies as they grow until big enough to put on the ground or into population

 

[soydo]

Okay moving chicks would also have meant taking all eggs away.


Some hens are slow to or don't leave the nest despite hatching chicks. Naturally, they leave the nest within 24 hours after the first chick. Any longer is abnormal and needs to be dealt with and not by leaving them in the nest box. Seems this hen may be one of those if it's fighting so hard to stay on a nest.

Take away ALL eggs. Remove ALL nest boxes if possible or block them all off. This hen needs to be directly on ground and paying attention to the chicks. Get her out of egg broody mode and into mother hen mode.

Normal behavior- making lots of calling to chick noises, making food calls, very ruffled up, some restless behavior. The first few days they frequently alternate between walking around and sitting down to warm the chicks, with the chick warming eventually happening less often as the days go by.

Sometimes a hen will bite the chicks occasionally. I don't know why normally they stop after a day. Rarely it's possible a hen will reject a particular chick, sometimes it happens to be the one that's dramatically different colored from the rest such as white or cream chick in a mainly black/dark colored chick batch. Next setting with all cream chicks she's great with them....

As the other poster said- moving the mother and chicks to a separate set up is an excellent way to deal with various problems like mother hens that won't leave the nest, other hens giving mother/chicks a hard time etc.

 

[backyardwitches]

Thank you for all the help! We got mom and babies outside for a bit (it started to rain so had to cut their walk short and got her back in the hen house) and she seems to be doing a bit better after she had a big smelly poop and ate some grass and walked a bit (with a lot of encouragement). I took away the eggs too, but she keeps squatting anyway, and she got really upset when didn't find any eggs and started stomping her feet around biting at the chicks.. so after a while of that, we gave her the only one egg that was not sure about and she calmed down and now there is peace as much as that is possible on 4th of July. I hope she is ready to give up on the egg tomorrow.

Update: This morning I took away the last egg, she saw me, looked a bit sad.. continue to sit for couple of minutes and then just stood up and spread her wings, stretched and started walking around and calling her babies with a completely different tune! she led them to the food, and of course showed them what it means to be a chicken by fiercely kicking bedding everywhere.. so I am moving her outside and now all the other ones can see them through the net and get used to the site as well as finally have access to their nests.

The last egg had a chick in it, fully formed but dead, it's beak looked deformed and it had not absorbed the yoke.