I have a hen that went broody, so I stopped by a neighbors house and bought a dozen fertile eggs to put under her yesterday. 1. I am interested in acquiring some marans eggs for hatching. If I get the marans eggs right now and hatch them in my incubator, will my hen accept them? I suspect they would hatch a few days after the ones she is brooding as I don't think I will have the marans eggs in the incubator for at least 3 days so the ones she is sitting on will have a 4 day head start. 2. how many chicks is too many for a hen to raise? could she handle 20-24 chicks?
You could always just replace the first eggs with the new ones... I tried to slip in extra chicks with my broody a few days after she hatched two and she rejected the two I tried to get her to take. I guess it could go either way though. Good luck!
I have had good luck getting my hens to take extra chicks by taking all the chicks away and then putting them back with the new ones. It doesn't give her the opportunity to count, she is just glad they are back. This has worked with a silkie and austrolorp. My Silke, Marge, was such a sucker for babies, she would take anything. Once I had her on pheasants and then found an orpahned muscovy duckling..stuck him in there with her and she took him. After a few weeks, when I would go to see how they were all doing, she would still be sitting on them and if you made a sound, the duckling would sit up and it looked as if Marge was levitating, because he was so big while she still sat on him.
I had great luck with my austerlop , she hatched 2 herself and I added 9 more chicks to her as they hatched out of the incubator over a 1 1/2 week spand. She took them all . I did do it at night after dark in the dark no light or flashlight , also I saw a post that said something about using gloves! . I didn't use gloves and I usually put them under her the day that they hatched.
