Broodies on eggs? Broodies with babies? Post here.

[austinhart123]

here are pics of two of my three broodies

here is the one who is due next week!

here is my broody that is on the turkey eggs

here are the turkey eggs

my goose thats nesting

i will get pictures of the other broody chicken tomorrow, im afraid to go nw becuase she scares easily... shes in the corner of a horse stall in a deep hole in the middle of a pileof hay

 

[gckiddhouse]

How stinkin' cute is that goose?????

Anyone have any other great reasons I must candle? Should I or shouldn't I?

 

[austinhart123]

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the only reason i can thinkof is that if none are fertile, you should set a second batch now instead of waiting till day 25 and realize nothings happening..

 

[Teresaann24]

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I find it a good reason to candle to see if there is any progress or if I am wasting my time. Some times a rotten egg can explode and ruin all your eggs. That is a very good reason to candle but it is up to you. Somtimes under my broodies I never candle.

 

[gckiddhouse]

Teresa - I am so thrilled that your broody is finally getting her chicks after all she has weathered!!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Ha ha ha, ya gotta love that look on your goose's face, she doesn't look pleased to have gotten her photo taken! What kind of goose is she? I have a pair of Embdens, the goose has been laying & I haven't been collecting her eggs, hoping she'll go broody. So far she hasn't, so I'm considering collecting any new eggs she lays so they don't go to waste.

Congratulations to all the hens hatching out chicks, and to the others with developing egglings under them. Way to go Mamas! My broodies stay with their chicks for about 5-10 weeks, some leave them earlier than others. They begin to lay again soon after leaving their chicks and returning to their flocks.

In all the times I've had hens incubating eggs & hatching chicks I've only had one egg that seemed to have "exploded" because it went bad. And even then it wasn't such a big mess, it was easy to clean up & the other chicks hatched out fine. All the other times the undeveloped eggs stay intact and I toss them out after the Mama has left the nest with her hatched chicks.

So that's why I don't bother candling the hens' eggs. Sometimes they will push them out because they're not developing, sometimes they push out developing eggs for unknown reasons. Perhaps it was avian error, perhaps the voices in their head told them to, who knows? But I don't worry about spoiling, exploding eggs in the nest.

I have a hen who has been on her nest for almost a week. Last night I found a broken egg on the ground outside her nest box, and when I checked under her found a broken egg at the bottom of the nest, egg goo covering her other eggs and the skin on her breast. So I wiped all the eggs with paper towels, cleaned the nest and replaced the gooey straw with dry fresh stuff, then put the hen back in place with the eggs underneath her. But she didn't want to set on them anymore, and seemed to have spent the night on the roost. This morning I opened her cage to let her out, then I had to leave for the rest of the day. I was surprised to see her back on the nest when I returned tonight. I had thought she had quit the job. I was going to swap her eggs for fresh ones tonight, but took a moment to candle them. There was veining & tiny curved embryos visable in most of them. So as an experiment, I left them under her, and plan to candle them again in a few days to see if they are indeed growing.

Sometimes all you have to do is look funny at an egg and it won't develop. Other times they can go through freezes & floods and still hatch. Go figure...

 

[Teresaann24]

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Thank you! She deserves them...sitting for 42 days...Yeah she is gonna be an awesome mommy..LOL

 

[austinhart123]

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she is a giant embdenXsebostopal and i think she is nesting now... she was there all day today with her boyfriend and he's a riot thinking hes all strong and trying to chase me lol..

does your goose show interest in her nest, is she there alot? does she cover them? is she protective of her nest? or is she just laying and then leaving? how many does she have? she may lay up to 15 before brooding although 5-10 is more common... let me know how she does

 

[Bec]

She is adorable!!! I have a chinese/embden that goes broody every spring.....her only boyfriend is a khaki campbell drake! She lays her eggs in a dog house every spring and lunges out at us when we walk by!!! I wish she had a 'real' boyfriend so I could get some grandbabies out of her!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I"m laughing picturing a big white goose dating a small brown drake. I bet my Khaki drake Webster would be glad to squire my goose Gertrude, but she's already married to a gander named Elmer. They're both about a year old now, and Gertie has only been laying for about a month. She laid 2 eggs in one spot, and I collected them both. Then she made a nice nest in a corner of the garden, laid about 8 eggs there every other day while Elmer stood guard each time, and covered them up with straw. I had high hopes she would brood there. But then she laid one egg in their pen, hasn't laid another there, and neither has she laid any more in her garden nest. I guess she's begun a new nest, I should collect all those other eggs before they break or attract a predator. And I guess they're no longer good for eating either, too bad! If she isn't going to try to brood, I will go ahead & collect her eggs for eating. As soon as I can find her new nest!