So, I don't know how many I've hatched and what I actually have.... There are 15 in the bator bearded silkies, EE mutts, orpingtons and one SLW.
I think my First broody was sitting on 13, we can see a bunch of chicks, at least 5. So so so cute to see mama taking care of babies. She takes food and puts it right down in front of the babies and shoves them toward it while clucking at them.
Will get pics tomorrow. Hopefully she'll let me see how many she has. Tonight when I went to remove shells and check for unhatched eggs she pecked me relentlessly.
Guess I'll wait.
My other broody is not quite as good. This am when my ds went to check on her he found a baby in the nest, not under mama all cold and not moving. He though it was dead but he put it back under mama, an hour later, same thing cold dead looking baby not under mama. Again, he put it back under her. By this afternoon she had hatched 3 of her 4 eggs and the chicks all fluffed up nicely. I took the 4th one and hatched it in the bator. I'm not sure she'll be any good at mothering. We'll see tomorrow how she does.
As far as I can tell there are at least 23 chicks out of 40 eggs, that's about 55% hatch rate. My best yet.
