1st time hatch w/ hen, need help!

[DarcyRN]

Thank you so much for this advice!! I will not give her another clutch immediately. That is excellent advice not to. I love this hen. She's my absolute favorite and I have been bringing her dried mealworms daily while she has been sitting.

I think I may just take her and the eggs out of the nest tonight and clean it very well, put them all back after and just wait. The smell from those previously broken eggs is pretty bad.

My local feed store is getting Araucana and Buff Cochins delivered this afternoon though. So rather than wait I may just slip 4 of those in tomorrow night if there isn't any action by then!

 

[dwalters]

Thanks for all the advice! How many eggs can a hen successfully sit on? I have one sitting on18! I have a feeling might be a bit to many!

 

[dwalters]

How do i kno when pipping starts?

 

[sumi]

Today is day 22/23 then? I think it's a good idea to scrub that nest box out and have a good look at the eggs. The simplest way I found to check overdue eggs is by holding them against your ear and tapping them with your fingernail. If there is no reply or response from the chick, candle the eggs and see what they look like. If they look viable, give them another day and repeat the tap. If you can get some chicks locally I'd say get a few of them and slip them under the hen as soon as you've got that box cleaned up. If her eggs hatch after all she can add those chicks to the clutch.

I never let my hens sit on more than 12, but you can give a hen as many eggs as she can cover comfortably. I had an ambitious bantam hen try and brood 25 eggs in a hidden nest once, but even with help from me in the incubator we only got 7 chicks out of them. If your hen is big and the eggs are small and they fit under her, let them be and see how she does.

Once they pipped internally you may be able to hear the chick cheeping. External pips are more obvious, you can see it and the chick may also get more vocal once it's pipped through the shell. But then I've had chicks pip, zip and hatch without making a sound.

 

[DarcyRN]

I owe you all an update! So, Fanny's eggs were certainly not viable. The mess and subsequent washing after her breaking some in the nest must have contaminated them. They continued to break after nest cleaning, and smelled increasingly worse each time. So, Friday night I went to the feed store to get day-old babies. I purchased 8, Auracauna, Dominique, Buff Orpington, Delaware, and Light Brahama. I placed these in her nest (after cleaning it again that day when she was up, and removing all but 3 eggs). Viola. She took them in like her own without any drama. The next morning I removed the last 3 eggs, and Fanny is the happy mother of 8 adopted chicks!!

My Barred Rock Florence is hatching her brood, with what I think will be the final one pipping now. She had a clutch of 10, 7 are fluffy and spunky, with the 8th pipping from the egg. No response from the other two eggs when held to my ear and tapped, but I'm just letting it ride until Flo leaves the nest with her brood and I'm good and sure they won't hatch.

Thank you for all of your excellent advice! This has been a great learning experience for me, with a happy outcome. Now if I could just figure out how to post some pics for you all to see! I feel like a proud grandma

 

[sumi]

Thanks for the update! I was actually thinking about you yesterday and wondering what the outcome was. I'm glad to hear you got her some babies to fuss over. And we'd LOVE to see pics! Here's a how to upload:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/inserting-pics-in-on-the-new-byc

Congrats on the other (successful) broody hatch! Make sure you candle and tap those 2 eggs before tossing them. I once gave up on a broody hen's last egg, but thankfully left it under her. She got up on day 25 and I found the egg pipped! LOL Beautiful, healthy chick too. No idea why it was so late, but it arrived