I have a broody silkie, we got two fertile creme legbar eggs for her to sit on. September 15th is when she started sitting on them. It's now October 14 Still no chicks. How long should we let her sit on them before we write them off as not going to hatch??
They won't hatch by now, they have died. You can try candling them but if you decide to do an eggtopsy be prepared for a big stink, do it outside if you can. They may explode at this point if they died early on during incubation so be careful in handling them or the smell will linger for a while, depending upon how decomposed they are. Standard number of days is 21, and they may hatch successfully up to day 24, but after that, I'm afraid not.
