This nutcase hen is making me crazy. We got her a bunch of (hopefully) fertile eggs on Friday after she sat on nuttin for a couple days. I really wish I had marked the eggs with a pencil or such given the events this morning.
So on Friday we put the 8 fertile eggs under her and feel like all should be well because she is parked under the nesting boxes, two of the boxes above her are virtually never used (our hens almost exclusively lay in the boxes on the other side of the coop), and nobody but this hen EVER lays eggs where she is below the boxes. That's been her place to lay eggs for the past couple months, and her's alone.
I go out there this morning and one of our SLWs are sitting in the corner next to the Maran. I move the SLW out of the way because I see she has eggs under her. Oh great, I think, 8 eggs. So I move the Maran and she has 6 under her. Now I have no idea which are which.
Waiting for my wife to come home, I ask her to grab the eggs and candle them. But when she goes out she only returns with 4. I ask, where are the others? So we go back out and the Maran has snatched the other 4 - she is now sitting on 10 eggs. I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF ALL THIS SILLINESS!
We took the 4 that Sunny had originally grabbed, held them against a 75 watt bulb and can't see anything in particular. Which may mean that out of the 10 the Maran is sitting on, at least 2 are most certainly not fertile (we have no roosters).
Should we snatch all of the eggs under the Maran, candle them, and only return those that have clear signs of fertility? Or should we just leave them all under her and hope for the best?
So on Friday we put the 8 fertile eggs under her and feel like all should be well because she is parked under the nesting boxes, two of the boxes above her are virtually never used (our hens almost exclusively lay in the boxes on the other side of the coop), and nobody but this hen EVER lays eggs where she is below the boxes. That's been her place to lay eggs for the past couple months, and her's alone.
I go out there this morning and one of our SLWs are sitting in the corner next to the Maran. I move the SLW out of the way because I see she has eggs under her. Oh great, I think, 8 eggs. So I move the Maran and she has 6 under her. Now I have no idea which are which.
Waiting for my wife to come home, I ask her to grab the eggs and candle them. But when she goes out she only returns with 4. I ask, where are the others? So we go back out and the Maran has snatched the other 4 - she is now sitting on 10 eggs. I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF ALL THIS SILLINESS!
We took the 4 that Sunny had originally grabbed, held them against a 75 watt bulb and can't see anything in particular. Which may mean that out of the 10 the Maran is sitting on, at least 2 are most certainly not fertile (we have no roosters).
Should we snatch all of the eggs under the Maran, candle them, and only return those that have clear signs of fertility? Or should we just leave them all under her and hope for the best?
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