Broody hen and incubating eggs

[momseev]

I currently have 26 eggs in the incubator that are due to hatch this coming weekend. I just discovered one of my hens has gone broody (of course she couldn't do this a couple weeks ago). Would it be too late for me to give her a few of the incubator eggs to hatch. She has never hatched eggs before but went broody on me last fall but I didn't want her sitting on a clutch going into winter so I kept taking her eggs. I thought about just letting her keep what she is sitting on, but we got rid of our rooster a couple weeks ago so I don't know if the girls are still fertile. He was mean!

Thanks!

 

[nchls school]

I currently have 26 eggs in the incubator that are due to hatch this coming weekend. I just discovered one of my hens has gone broody (of course she couldn't do this a couple weeks ago). Would it be too late for me to give her a few of the incubator eggs to hatch. She has never hatched eggs before but went broody on me last fall but I didn't want her sitting on a clutch going into winter so I kept taking her eggs. I thought about just letting her keep what she is sitting on, but we got rid of our rooster a couple weeks ago so I don't know if the girls are still fertile. He was mean!

Thanks!

There is a very good chance that the eggs under your broody hen are fertile. The hen probably would accept chicks from the incubator put under her at night. I had the same situation earlier this spring. I put eggs from the incubator under a broody hen who had just started. The eggs hatched less than a week later and all was fine. The hen acted as though she had brooded the three week and had chicks hatch. But do you want to destroy the eggs under the hen? Eggs can be fertile for a month or so after the rooster is gone.

 

[momseev]

Thanks for the reply. I decided to keep the eggs in the incubator and let her sit on what she had. I do need to find someplace I can put her however so the other chickens stop kicking her out to lay their eggs in her box. I found two broken ones the other day when I shooed one of the other girls off the nest. Excited to see what happens in the incubator this weekend. All 26 still showed movement when I candled on Saturday. We have entered lock down mode today.