Broody hen abandoned eggs during development, what to do?? Help!

[bathsheba8542]

Great question and I wish I knew the answer to that. Yesterday I got to the barn and both hens were on their nests (I check them about 30 times a day). A bit later, one was off, and a mean hen was in between the two nesting hens. Then, one of the hens hightailed it to the far end of the line of nest boxes and left her nest. This morning it was still unattended. But, she was done in the other box with a new egg. SIGH. I shoved the rest under her, and hope I've done the right thing. Between an accidental murder of an innocent chick and my hen abandoning her nest, I thought this as more than I could figure out how to deal with.

Then, this morning, the good hen is in her nest box, on her nest as she should be. EATING AN EGG. What in the world are they all doing??? They get tons of food, fresh water, plenty of space, oyster shell, etc. I hope I get one live chick out of the 20 eggs they've been sitting on. : (

 

[Hattie the Hen]

I'm afraid the only solution to these problems is to isolate each hen out of sight, & hearing if possible, of any other chicken. Keep them shut in except for the time you let them out for food,exercise etc. Do not let them out into an area with other chickens. That way they won't get distracted from their task. Also make sure where they set is pretty dark.
I have always fed my hens on mixed corn only throughout their broodiness. It keeps their eggs clean & them warm -- I was advised to do this by a very experienced poultry keeper who had done it all his life. I also dampen the nest very gently in the last couple of days; this is to raise the humidity for the zipping & hatching.

Hope this helps!

Hattie

 

[77horses]

Quote:
Thanks!

Well, Oreo is off the nest for good and I finally got her eggs into the incubator. Not sure if they will make it, maybe some will, but I'm gonna give them a try anyway and hope for the best.

But the incubator is acting up again and after they were cool for a while and now the messed up temperature in the incubator is on top of all that, there's really not a good chance of them making it.

After examining them closer, I found that two eggs had small cracks in them (probably from the broody hen being rough with them) and I'm going to put wax over the cracks. I've heard that putting clear nail polish over the cracks will help, but then again someone else said that it's poisonous.

 

[puppies9099]

URGENR; our hen (lawnmorwer layer) had 6 eggs after a 2weeks we had another broody hen(cage layer) that abandon her eggs after a week and we had to put (cage layers)eggs under (lawnmorwer layer) to keep them alive and now lawn morwer layers eggs hatched and she won't sit on the other eggs ,we have put her back 20-50 times and she comes right back out ,if we contain her with eggs and babies she won't sit ,WHAT DO I DO THIS IS AN EMERGENCY PLEASE HELP HELP HELP

 

[silver02]

I had a similar case where a broody hen abandoned her eggs after 18 days. I was able to keep her inside the nest box for the night and most parts of the day by building a little blocking board in front of the entrance. Once she was stuck in the nest box it was as if she remembered to sit and hatch.

You can see a youtube video of the outcome here...