Broody drama- What happened???

[TeamChaos]

In my coop, I had a cochin sitting on three eggs (three have already hatched and I removed the babies so she'd be likely to finish the job). In the box next to her I had a jersey giant start sitting on eggs three days after the cochin started and the giant had 13 (!!) numbered eggs. A few days after she started sitting, my barred rock went broody under the bunk in the coop.
So as of yesterday I had 1. Cochin w/ three eggs that candled to show development was very advanced 2. Jersey giant that had an insane number of eggs, all showing development and 3. barred rock with undisclosed amount of eggs hiding under the bunk.

Tonight I came in to find that my Cochin's nest box had been stolen by another hen and all three of her eggs were GONE. Then I found the jersey giant's numbered egg stash had been split between a high and a low nest box, both now occupied by previously unbroody hens. The jersey giant was in her original nest box but with new unmarked eggs. I candled them all and cannot find the cochin's very full looking eggs anywhere and there's no evidence of a massacre. Poor little thing was quite distraught and being in an empty nest, so I took some eggs from the barred rock's nest (candled and marked them) and gave them to the cochin.

I am totally flummoxed. What happened? How can hens shuffle eggs between nest boxes to that extent? There were no kids or pranksters in or around my coop.

 

[CCourson05]

I've always wondered how they move eggs up and down different level nesting boxes...

 

[TeamChaos]

CCourson- so you've heard of it happening before? I'm absolutely flabbergasted and I haven't found any confirmation of chickens' ability to do this in old threads yet. I really think there must have been some sort of musical nest box/ scavenger hunt game going on!

 

[CCourson05]

Yep. I've left golf balls in every box before. 2 rows of 3. All 6 ended up in one low nesting box with a fat BO on top. No idea, and no one moved them...

 

[sweeterdeeter42]

This is bizarre!!!!

 

[gryeyes]

They do move eggs (and golf balls). A hen will reach across an egg with her beak and tuck it back into her breast feathers, then skootch forward with it. It's the same movement they make when they tuck eggs under their bodies when they're broody, just not quite as far - just into the breast and hold it there. They can lift their prizes up over nest box edges.

I saw my broody BO do it, once. Here's a photo of one part of the process. Buffy is tucking a green egg; you can just see it in this picture.

Buffy was on her eggs in the heat of summer, and it was HOT in that coop and nest box. She would move the eggs out of the nest box into the middle of the more open space where it was slightly cooler (I think) and then move them back a couple of days later when it was cooler. She moved three eggs out and back twice, as well as stealing eggs from the adjacent nest box when she first started brooding.

 

[TeamChaos]

Oh my goodness! Thank you so much for the photo and explanation! Man, these girls must have been all sorts of busy yesterday... Now to figure out how to watch for babies effectively.

 

[MuranoFarms]

Quote:
Oh good luck with that one! lol You're going to have to candle all the eggs and pass them out by what looks like it will hatch the same day!

I just did this! Mine played musical eggs for about 2 weeks! Ugh....then they kept stealing additional eggs and I'd find them a few days later....already starting to develop and I didn't have the heart to toss em, so into the bator they went. I've had a chick hatch every other day for about 2 weeks now! lol

 

[Judy]

I'm surprised no one has come along and said you should have separated them. Many do. I've done it both ways. It's more fun to mark eggs and watch their antics, to me! Besides, I don't want to have to wait 4 months to integrate chicks. Evidently mine are adept at the "chin tuck carry." And my best broody has a favorite nest in with the others. She is NOT happy when I try to separate her. So I let her do it her way. She's sitting on golf balls now til the feed store gets their chicks -- my only roos are around 10 weeks. Hopefully the golf balls will encourage her to keep sitting til the chicks arrive.

 

[TeamChaos]

We candled and sorted and marked all of the eggs deemed "developing" as of yesterday, so at least we won't have mountains of freshly laid eggs added in to the already crazy situation. I figure if any of the eggs are still hanging around three weeks from yesterday, we'll be able to clean up with clear conscience then.

The plan was to separate them when I just had the two broody ladies- we renovated a saddle box to be a lovely two nest broody home but now I've got a lot more ladies sitting- ugh!