I know better than to move eggs to a new broody especially when they only have a 7 days left to hatch. With that being said, I did just that last Saturday thinking it would be so much nicer to have a mama raise the two babies. I went out to check on them this morning as it is day 21 and there laid a baby stiff next to the mom. I checked and the other eggs had pipped so I grabbed them both and headed into the house. I did not have the incubator up and running so I laid down the baby and fixed up the hatcher really quickly with the egg in one hand. The little homemade hatcher is thankfully very east to set up. I got the light in there and the baby and egg inside it and the temp went up fast since it is a very small unit. Humidity was the least of my worries at that point. The baby started to revive and the egg continued to unzip. Here is a photo of the two little ones.
When we talk about moving eggs to broodies please be careful and only try that with an experienced mama. I have done this once before and the results were much worse than this one. I am not sure if an experienced mama would do any better because they do have their own internal clock and I think they know when their eggs should hatch. I have moved eggs that were only one week into the incubation cycle successfully but I will not try it when there is less than a week to go with a new mama again.
These were eggs I traded with Marie Martin for. We have had a time getting eggs between us to hatch. Air Cells were ruptured in all the eggs yet there were still two little determined babies that wanted to live in spite of all the things the shipping and I threw at them.
When we talk about moving eggs to broodies please be careful and only try that with an experienced mama. I have done this once before and the results were much worse than this one. I am not sure if an experienced mama would do any better because they do have their own internal clock and I think they know when their eggs should hatch. I have moved eggs that were only one week into the incubation cycle successfully but I will not try it when there is less than a week to go with a new mama again.
These were eggs I traded with Marie Martin for. We have had a time getting eggs between us to hatch. Air Cells were ruptured in all the eggs yet there were still two little determined babies that wanted to live in spite of all the things the shipping and I threw at them.
