Am I doing the right thing? Input please..thank you

[Total Chaos]

I have a bantam cochin hen that laid her eggs, started sitting and all was going fine. They were due to start hatching yesterday which they did. But here is where the trouble is..about 2 weeks into sitting one of my other hens starts sitting in the same nest with her. A few days ago I see that no longer is the first hen sitting on 16 eggs they are now both sitting on 23 eggs. So I am looking at the first original 16 to hatch now and then 1 per day on the other 10. So here is my plan so far. They started hatching last night and so far I have just been removing them as they hatch and putting them in brooder in order to keep the hens setting. Do you think it's possible to keep doing this for the next 10 days or so and have everything work out so I could give the last couple of chicks back to the hens to raise? They are nesting in my husbands shop and he works (self employed) out there all day and its no problem keeping tabs on what is going on. Does this sound like it may work if I just keep taking them as they hatch? Have 5 chicks so far with lots more hatching. These are very anticipated chicks that I have been planning since last year so I hope all goes well.

 

[Lisa202]

I don't have the answer and I'm sure that others will come and give great advice, but I do have a question, if I may...?

When you take a chick from under the hen...do lift her up and take it or do you stick your hand underneath and feel around? The reason I ask is b/c I hear a lot about not interrupting the humidity in an incubator, so I figure that the same would apply to a broody hen. I just had a hen hatch 1 chick and since there was one more egg, I left her alone (till day 24...I've heard they can hatch that late). Well, it turned out that the 2nd egg never hatched and the chick died on day 4. I feel that I should have intervened with either taking that 2nd egg as to stop her from waiting and not taking care of her chick, or at least dipping the chicks beak in water to get it eating. Either way, I felt that I couldn't interrupt the hatching process b/c of the humidity thing. But you seem to be doing it with no consequence.

 

[mmaddie's mom]

I have done this... but not to this extreme!
I see no reason why it won't work.

Do you have some place to put the first mom in seclusion (like a large dog crate)? When the first half are hatched could you seclude her and the chicks hatched? Then continue doing what you are doing until the end and give the second hen the last half hatched.

 

[mmaddie's mom]

I have mixed and matched chicks like this... just not in the numbers that you have.
Good Luck!

 

[Total Chaos]

Thank you for the replies and yes Lisa I just feel around under the hens and don't move them from the eggs. So far all is going well and both hens are still happy. As of right now I have 5 chicks removed and in the brooder and getting ready to go out and collect the others that have hatched since this morning. I plan to only remove them every 12 hours so as not to bother the hens so much but also because I don't want the chicks to start convincing their mothers that they need to leave to take care of them. I'm beginning to feel like this is going to work out if I can do my part for the next week or so. I do know I won't let this happen again..lol. I hope to be able to post some pictures of them soon.

 

[mmaddie's mom]

Looking forward to the pics!

 

[Total Chaos]

As of this morning we have 13 chicks so far with more still hatching! With this being my 10th post maybe I will be past the newbie status and will be able to post some pics!