Bit off more than we could chew perhaps?

Ahalestorm

In the Brooder
Jun 5, 2017
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Hi! We are barely into our first experience raising/keeping chickens and we've already been thrown a curve ball. We live in the Sacramento valley in California and started with one very beautiful jersey giant roo who was given to us. Shortly after his arrival, we were given 2 hens (absolutely no idea what breed) to keep our roo company. Everything was well till our landlord (who lives just across the field from us) asked that we get rid of the roo because of the crowing ☹️. Our 6 year old daughter was so sad about the rooster so we opted to pick up 6 chicks from tractor supply just before they ran out and raising these babies has been such a delight!

We got rid of the roo and picked up the chicks in the last week of April. About 2 1/2 weeks ago my husband was out closing up the coop for the evening when he noticed one of our two hens was missing. To make a long story short, we ended up finding her and 14 eggs under a tool cart. Turns out 4 of the 14 were fertile! I returned the 4 developing eggs to her nest in hopes that something might come of them. I candled them a week ago and one had a blood ring clearly visible so I got rid of it but the other three were still good as far as I could tell. My husband had me convinced that there was no way these embryos could still be alive because they're a month and a half old so pulled them from the nest and ignorantly cracked into one to see what the dead embryo looked like. After I gently removed the chick from the egg, I was horrified to see it actually start moving!! I felt terrible!!! Needless to say, I quickly returned the other two to the nest hoping it wasn't too late. That was 4 days ago. Here is a picture of the embryo. Maybe someone can tell how far along it was and how I can verify the other too might still be alive since there has been no signs of hatching that I can tell. Any advise would be greatly appreciated!!
 

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