How strange that my first post at BYC will be a strange post. I was just wondering if the following is something of a miracle or more of a commonplace event. One of my penhens decided the back of a stall that my goats use was where she was going to make her nest. I had been keeping an eye on her and knew her eggs were close to hatching. Let me explain that we live in a very rural area in Florida and we've always had problems with possums and coons and occasionally a neighbor's beagle attacking our peacocks and quail in the past.
Thursday morning I was down at the barn and the neighbor's beagle showed up. Since I had caught the same dog destroying a peahen's nest last year, I chased the dog off. About 20 minutes later, it shows up again. I chased it off again all the way to where to dog lives. I went back to the house and promptly forgot about it. That afternoon when I went to feed I discovered the peahen in the goat stall's nest was partly destroyed and the hen was gone. I couldn't find her the rest of the day. I left the unharmed eggs in the nest and took the broken ones away, thinking Mom might come back.
To make the rest of this long story short, the next morning I found the hen and she had abandoned the nest. When I went to the nest to gather the eggs for disposal (they were cold), I heard a peep peep peep. One of the eggs THAT WAS COLD was hatching. I brought the egg up to the house and placed it on a heating pad and covered with some flannel I warmed in the drier. The baby is doing fine. He/she is in the house with some pheasant that just hatched out and they get along well. Luckily I have 3 baby peafowl I incubated that are about 3 weeks old. I'll introduce them soon and see how they get along.
Has anybody had this happen or hear of an egg being abandoned, get cold but hatches out a healthy youngun?
Thanks and I sure love this website. So much to learn and so many who share their knowledge. Terri
Thursday morning I was down at the barn and the neighbor's beagle showed up. Since I had caught the same dog destroying a peahen's nest last year, I chased the dog off. About 20 minutes later, it shows up again. I chased it off again all the way to where to dog lives. I went back to the house and promptly forgot about it. That afternoon when I went to feed I discovered the peahen in the goat stall's nest was partly destroyed and the hen was gone. I couldn't find her the rest of the day. I left the unharmed eggs in the nest and took the broken ones away, thinking Mom might come back.
To make the rest of this long story short, the next morning I found the hen and she had abandoned the nest. When I went to the nest to gather the eggs for disposal (they were cold), I heard a peep peep peep. One of the eggs THAT WAS COLD was hatching. I brought the egg up to the house and placed it on a heating pad and covered with some flannel I warmed in the drier. The baby is doing fine. He/she is in the house with some pheasant that just hatched out and they get along well. Luckily I have 3 baby peafowl I incubated that are about 3 weeks old. I'll introduce them soon and see how they get along.
Has anybody had this happen or hear of an egg being abandoned, get cold but hatches out a healthy youngun?
Thanks and I sure love this website. So much to learn and so many who share their knowledge. Terri
