Brooding hen on wrong nest

[Jim 13160]

I've had a broody hen for quite a while now. I tried breaking her, by just taking her out of the coop, with the rest of my birds, but it only worked for a few hours at best. I was unable to lock her out, as the other hens were not done laying yet, when I left for the day. Rather than "jailing" her, I decided to do it natures way, and gave her a few eggs to hatch. My problem lies with her occasionally switching nests, while I'm gone for the day. The times she's done it, have all been minimum of mid-70s days. The information that I have found, tells me that if the eggs were fertile in the first place, they will likely still hatch. My question is, will hatching be delayed? I am at day 21 today, how long should I wait, before abandoning hope?

 

[50-45-1]

Does not sound to hopefull to me. Your broody should be placed in a broody pen where she remains undisturbed and no other hens can continually lay fresh eggs under her creating stagered batch.
She should ony be given eggs if she is dedicated to the task.
A dedicated broody will leave the nest once a day to eat drink and deficate then return to the nest.
Your hen given the choice of nesting boxes and chose a different one, (if there were eggs in that one too) was likely off the first eggs long enough to chill them badly. 70 degrees will not cut it. The hen keeps them somewhere around 98-99.
Most of my batches start hatching on day 19.
I will be intrested to know if your broody gets any chicks

 

[Jim 13160]

I've checked several forums, where people had the same issue. They varied from 3-4 hours and up to 15 hours off nest, and eggs where cool to touch. All had eggs hatch, but they never mentioned added time. I marked the eggs when I gave them to her, and remove any added ones daily. I think she was more dedicated earlier on, she may be getting frustrated now, since it's been so long since she started, which was well over a month since I gave her the eggs.

 

[Jim 13160]

Does not sound to hopefull to me. Your broody should be placed in a broody pen where she remains undisturbed and no other hens can continually lay fresh eggs under her creating stagered batch.
She should ony be given eggs if she is dedicated to the task.
A dedicated broody will leave the nest once a day to eat drink and deficate then return to the nest.
Your hen given the choice of nesting boxes and chose a different one, (if there were eggs in that one too) was likely off the first eggs long enough to chill them badly. 70 degrees will not cut it. The hen keeps them somewhere around 98-99.
Most of my batches start hatching on day 19.
I will be intrested to know if your broody gets any chicks

Update: When I went to lock the flock in for the night, broody girl was out having a little squash I left out for them. I went in to check the eggs, and I could hear activity in one of the eggs. Mostly some light tapping, and I thought I heard a chirp, but there were also several birds just outside chirping.

 

[Jim 13160]

Update day 23: 1 healthy chick hatched, and think I hear a little activity in a second egg.

 

[Jim 13160]

Final update: I originally had 4 eggs under her, but one broke very early in. Day 23, she hatched one nice chick. Day 26, she finally seemed to give up on the unhatched 2. I Opened both, one was infertile, the other had a dead, nearly full term chick. This was also one I found knocked out of the nest, nearly a week before the one hatched.