Bad eyesight!!

[Waskoneto]

I have a sweet, young little Japanese bantam that just started laying a few eggs here and there a few weeks ago. I think we may have collected about 5 eggs from her before she came up missing. We really thought she had become dinner for a stray cat or raccoon but then we caught sight of her on the security camera. She was there one minute and then gone the next. After a thorough search of the premises we found her and her little clutch of 10 eggs under a few planks of wood next to the garage. It wasn't in a good area and not protected from the elements at all so we brought her and the nest in and set up our pop up brooder and made her nice and comfy. The next day my husband candled the eggs and said none were viable so I decided to purchase some hatching eggs to stick under her. Last night when I got home with the eggs I candled them and decided to candle her own eggs one more time before removing and 2 of them very clearly have live chicks! When I compare to a candle chart it looks like they're about day 14. I don't have an incubator for the new hatching eggs that I purchased so I went ahead and left them under her. So she'll have 2 chicks that will probably be hatching in about 7 days and then it'll be a whole 14 days later that the other chicks will hatch. I've had chickens for a while now but this is our first time with a broody momma and also the 1st time I realized how bad my husband's eyes are!!.. lol. How do I handle this situation? Do I just leave all the eggs where they are with her or should I franticly find an incubator? I had really hoped to leave chicks with momma for a few days inside and then move them all out to their own little pen in the coop so to introduce them to the rest of the flock. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[azygous]

That guy you live with has backed you into a corner. A staggered hatch is always problematic, and a gap of 14 days is just not going to work.

You need to accept that you have two different broods. Decide which group you will incubate and raise and which ones you want the broody to handle. If you expect her to do both, you will likely lose one group to neglect and abandonment.

A broody is governed by her hormones, and once eggs start hatching, her hormones shift to a new phase of chick rearing from egg sitting. She can't juggle both at the same time, especially two whole weeks worth of difference.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

x2 on @azygous's advice - I just don't think your hen will do a staggered hatch that far apart.

And glasses are fashionable now. Maybe you should tell him..?

 

[Waskoneto]

What's your thoughts on taking the first 2 chicks out as soon as they're hatched and sticking them in brooder until the others hatch and then trying to sneak them back in once all chicks are hatched? Would it be worth a try? And if my broody abandones the 2nd group of eggs I can stick them in the incubator...??

 

[BoselyBoo]

I apologize in advance for the length of this post but rest assured that this version IS the condensed version...lol !!!
I don't think that removing the first two chicks right after they hatch is going to be your biggest concern. It's going to be the clutch of unhatched eggs and the length of time that remains before they're scheduled to hatch. Like others have said, once your hen notices that some of her eggs have now become chicks, she more than likely won't continue to sit on the rest of the eggs for more than a few days, maybe a week at best. Call it hormones or Mother Nature or sublime chicken intelligence, but whatever you call it it's what makes hens get up and off, basically abandon, the eggs they're sitting on after a certain period of time. Even the broodiest of hens, when faced with any unhatched eggs after a certain period of time, will abandon them and start over with a fresh lay of eggs. They just do. If you were only talking a couple of days between the first and second hatches, you might be successful. You might be. But with an entire 2 weeks between them I just don't think it's going to work no matter how you try to juggle it. This is what I would do if I encountered your situation but please don't take it as fact or as a fool proof way of getting all the eggs to hatch, it's just what I would do.
If you don't have other broody hens and if you don't know anyone with a broody hen that you could stick the newest clutch of eggs under then I would buy or borrow an incubator and put the two original eggs that your hen layed in the incubator until they hatched and leave the rest of the eggs (or the second clutch) under your hen until they hatched. I wouldn't even try to stick the first two chicks back in with your hen until all the others have hatched and even then I would do so very cautiously in order to make sure that your hen will accept them hanging around what she has come to know as her babies and not try to peck at them or chase them off. Others on here may disagree but here is my reasoning on why I would choose to do it this way.
1. the fewer eggs I have to mechanically incubate, the better off I know I'll be and most likely, so will the eggs (chicks).
2. the fewer chicks I have in the brooder, the better off I know...(see rest of explaination above in #1).
3. I like to gamble but I'm not a big risk taker and so I usually play the odds and the odds in this situation say that it's better to risk losing the first two eggs (or chicks) than it is to be almost guaranteed of losing all of the second batch of eggs (or chicks).
But like I said in the beginning, this is just my thought on how I would handle your situation should I ever happen to encounter it. I wish you the best of luck and please let us know what you decide to do and how it turns out as I'm sure others on here would be interested in knowing as well.
P.S. as far as putting the second group of eggs in the incubator should your hen abandon them...You could try to do that but you would have to have your incubator up and running at the proper temperature and humidity level in anticipation of that happening well before it actually happened. Not to mention the fact that once you put the eggs in the incubator, the minor temp and humidity adjustments you'll have to make might just be too many variables or fluctuations for the eggs and they may no longer be viable because of this. I don't know about anyone else, but it takes me several days, at least, to fine tune my incubator before it's ready to accept any eggs. (Any eggs that I actually want to hatch that is....lol) If you don't have it up and running, in the time that it would take to get it that way, you will have lost the chance of them hatching do to the eggs being cold for too long. Good Luck !!!

 

[chickens really]

What's your thoughts on taking the first 2 chicks out as soon as they're hatched and sticking them in brooder until the others hatch and then trying to sneak them back in once all chicks are hatched? Would it be worth a try? And if my broody abandones the 2nd group of eggs I can stick them in the incubator...??

I would leave things as they are. Allow her to hatch her two chicks and incubate the others in your incubator. You can set up a look no touch pen beside the Hen once the new Chicks hatch and see if she will accept Chicks 14 days younger? Some will and some won't. My Silkie had 6 week old chicks of her own and then adopted 11 SS chicks I ordered from the hatchery.

 

[azygous]

Time for creative solutions. My friends have just given you some good ideas to draw from. But do not think you can fool your broody into somehow rearing all of these chicks.

It's another thing entirely to integrate them all after they hatch. That's going to be easy. Last spring I had two groups of baby chicks that were two weeks apart in age and size and I had no problems putting them all together from the very start.

 

[Waskoneto]

You guys have been absolutely tremendous!! I failed to mention 2 important aspects in my post. #1- the second clutch of eggs that I stuck under her are extremely precious to me. They're from the absolute best breeder in my area! I had a rare opportunity to do a little bartering otherwise I would never be able or willing to afford her hatching eggs. #2- I have zero experience with incubators! I was able to borrow one from a friend. It's a Deluxe Digital by farm innovators. I set it up last night and have been trying to tweek it to its full potential. I've also read for hours and hours about temps and humidity just trying to get it right! I've been stressing about putting my precious eggs in it but thanks to BoselyBoo I don't think I'll have to do that at all. My plan is to take the 2 eggs that are already formed out from under my broody and stick them in the bator and leave her with the other10 eggs. If I get a hatch out of the 1st 2 eggs and put the chicks in a little brooder will the broody hen know they're her chicks and abandon the nest to try the find the source of the 2 chirping chicks? They'd have to be in the same room... Separate pens without being able to see each other but she'd be able to hear them for sure. Do you think this should be a concern?

 

[azygous]

That's the plan I would pursue. Very good solution.

You can't predict a broody's behavior. One time, years ago, I had a broody sit on one egg. Knowing when it would hatch, I bought a few chicks from the feed store that would be the same age and size. I tried giving the bought chicks to the broody and she attacked them. I ended up snatching her one chick and brooding them all together myself. The broody missed her chick for a day and she did pay attention to the chicks all chirping when I moved them all into the run the next day to brood in proximity to the adult flock. But there were no frantic efforts to get to her chick.

All you can do is execute your plan and be ready to make changes if necessary. Some broodies are so into raising chicks, they will accept strange ones. One can only try things and see what happens.

 

[chickens really]

You guys have been absolutely tremendous!! I failed to mention 2 important aspects in my post. #1- the second clutch of eggs that I stuck under her are extremely precious to me. They're from the absolute best breeder in my area! I had a rare opportunity to do a little bartering otherwise I would never be able or willing to afford her hatching eggs. #2- I have zero experience with incubators! I was able to borrow one from a friend. It's a Deluxe Digital by farm innovators. I set it up last night and have been trying to tweek it to its full potential. I've also read for hours and hours about temps and humidity just trying to get it right! I've been stressing about putting my precious eggs in it but thanks to BoselyBoo I don't think I'll have to do that at all. My plan is to take the 2 eggs that are already formed out from under my broody and stick them in the bator and leave her with the other10 eggs. If I get a hatch out of the 1st 2 eggs and put the chicks in a little brooder will the broody hen know they're her chicks and abandon the nest to try the find the source of the 2 chirping chicks? They'd have to be in the same room... Separate pens without being able to see each other but she'd be able to hear them for sure. Do you think this should be a concern?

You can hatch the two under her. If you want too?
Just remove at hatching. That Hen will continue to set the others another 14 days..