I had a fright with one of my 2 week old chicks, it looked like she had been dustbathing but couldn't get up. On closer examination, she had got her neck stuck under a twig.......a quick release and all was well!
I am in Portugal and we can get some hot days up to about 115 but usually it is around 100. I keep a hose handy and 2-3 times a day I let it trickle over the roof of the coop to try to keep it less like an oven ! They do free range and have some trees for shade but I often find them right up...
Can you find a way of making the old nestbox unavailable or blocking her access to it (I am presuming that there are no more eggs in there)? You really want them to stay lower so chicks cannot fall out....
In that case, you could move her to a deeper cardboard box on the ground that she cannot get out of, until you are sure she is staying on the eggs, then you can cut out the doorway. She is more likely to stay on the eggs if you move them in the evening, I believe.
I think that if you can wait till towards evening roosting time, it would be better to move her and the eggs then. Try to keep the eggs in the same position , moving them gently one at a time then pop the hen back on top. Would be easier if you have someone to hold the hen whilst you move the...
I had the same problem with one of my hatches with 2 hens nesting side by side. In the end I left them to sort it out and they sat for an extra 2 weeks and just hatched a couple of eggs then gave up sitting so it worked out OK in the end. Since then, I now mark the eggs !
Thank you azygous. Thinking about it more calmly now, I think that if the same situation occurred again, I would take the same steps that I did, so I shall now stop beating myself up about it.....
One of my girls was not looking too good 2 days ago, but since they often pick up again, I left her alone. Yesterday she was far worse, so I gave her a bath , massaged her and oiled her vent, then put her to bed. She was dead this morning when I went out and when I checked her innards, she had...
Fantastic news, I was wondering if anything had happened yet. I had to rescue one little home-raised hen from the rest of my flock and keep her with her brother separately because she was being bullied so much. She came to point-of-lay but nothing happened. I had a chance to rehome the pair of...