A Button Quail and her clutch

[Murphy_the_Hooligan]

We let our hen hatch her first clutch of 6 eggs naturally. The babies (only two survived) will be 5 weeks on Thursday of this week.

My hen, Bonnie, has been laying eggs for 2-3 weeks now, we were waiting for her to sit on her second clutch. She has 14 eggs! she keeps turning them, but will not sit on them! Do I need to remove these and let her make a new clutch? Her tiny little butt couldn’t possibly warm all these eggs! I have posted a pic below. Our roo, Clyde, is pictured with them.

 

[DK newbie]

Have you removed the big chicks yet? From the 20-30 natural hatches I've experienced, only twice - both occurring right now - have I experienced the hen going broody again before I remove the old chicks (which I usually do when they are 5-6 weeks old - the two hens going broody have done so when their chicks were around 4 weeks).
If the old chicks have been removed, some hens will go broody as soon as they have 6-10 eggs - some will just keep laying and maybe not sit again for another year.
With 14 eggs, I'd just remove them - as you said, there is no way she can cover them all and unless you marked the eggs when they were laid, you don't know which are the oldest, and the oldest probably aren't fertile anymore.
If you want her to go broody again, I'd also add some cover above the nest. Fake plants work very well. It makes them feel a lot safer on the nest and makes them more likely to go broody.

 

[Murphy_the_Hooligan]

Thank you for your excellent response! What should I do with the eggs? Are they still safe to eat?

 

[DK newbie]

Depending on temp and humidity some of them might have gone a little off. If you put them in water, discard the ones that float. They are not necessarily 'bad' but since they float they have at least lost a lot of water and this indicates that they are somewhat old. For the rest I'd just make sure they look normal inside, before I eat them.

 

[Murphy_the_Hooligan]

Thank you so much! I was thinking of poking a hole and draining them so I can keep the shells and put them in a vase for a lovely centerpiece

 

[DK newbie]

My mom has a few that we've drained. As I recall it was hard to poke a hole without breaking the shell all around it (or maybe it was during the draining we broke the shell?), but I don't remember if we found a good technique.

 

[Murphy_the_Hooligan]

Aww! I really don’t know if I could do it! I will let you know how it turns out