Broken shells but no chicks

[Slugga95]

I have a hen that has been sitting on her eggs for a month now. she started with 15 eggs and now im down to only 4. i know their ready to hatch because she keeps getting up and going sit back down on them. i put feed in the nesting box to help her eat. and they still never hatched. i keep finding broken eggs shells in the nesting box but never any chicks. i have 5 other hens a one rooster in the chicken coop with her. does anyone know what might be the problem. Also i have two of my other hens laying eggs in the same nesting box what should i do with them. i have a total of 25 eggs in one nesting boxe that the two hens layed in their.

 

[gracierooster]

Hens are funny, if one hen lays in a box they all want to lay there. Chicks hatch in 21 days so you should have had chicks by now if you were going to. You can candle the eggs, take your pointer finger and thumb wrap them around your egg without the other fingers behind them and shine a flashlight behind the egg while in the dark. If it shines clear, no embryo. If there is a dark spot in the egg, there is an embryo starting. If theentire egg is blaks it is ready to hatch.

In the future, when your hen gets broody, immediately mark the eggs under her. If you use an incubator you would mark one side with an x and one side with just a line because using an incubator requires rotating them twice a day, something the hen does naturally. Every few days you can poke underneath her to see if any unmarked eggs show up and then take them out. Candle them at two weeks and take out the ones that aren't fertile so you don't end up with broken eggs in the nest which is messy and encourages insects. Good luck, keep us posted!!!

 

[Den in Penn]

Why are you leaving the other hens' eggs in the other nest box? Hens like to lay where it is safe and where some one else has laid would seem safe. You put feed in the nest with the broody. I'll bet some spilled and scattered around. If that's the case the eggs may have been broken during the jostling to get that feed. A broody will not starve herself to death while she sits. She needs to get up and stretch the legs and drink, eat and poo. They have been doing this for countless generations.

 

[aggiemae]

When I was designing our coop I read that it's important to make the nesting boxes as close to identical as possible.and that it's best to place them in the dark part of the coop.