Broody hen playing musical eggs... Help please! lol (5 new chicks!)

[greginshasta]

Quote:
yup. and I'm taking it in good humor, but we are also really hoping for home-hatched chicks and it's a bit nervewracking.

 

[JennsPeeps]

Make sure you mark all the ones you're going to leave. There's no telling how many more might appear.

 

[greginshasta]

We have a large"ish" cat carrier so I disassembled the nesting boxes shown in the photos, loaded the carrier with bedding, and moved the Maran and eggs into it. That entirely annoyed her and she is now out in the yard. Waiting to see if she will return and sit in the carrier. More later.

 

[BarkerChickens]

I would mark ALL the eggs that she is "claiming" now, that way if more pop up, you know they aren't hers. Then at 10 days candle them and give her back the fertile eggs.

 

[greginshasta]

We marked them yesterday. As I moved her today it was clear that she cannot fit all the eggs under her, one or two were off to the side, but I'll just wait for next weekend and see how things look.

 

[greginshasta]

Well, we never bothered to candle the eggs, but exactly 21 days (my birthday) after giving the Maran some fertile eggs, she popped out 5 little chicks.

We are so accustomed to purchasing chicks and keeping them in the tub with the heat lamp, it seems so different to just leave the chicks with "mom", but that's what we are doing and they seem just fine at this point... She tucks them up under her at night and cares for them with the same diligence that she sat on their eggs with.

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[chickencoop31320]

awwww so cute

 

[FlockMama]

Quote:
Beautiful

 

[THough1956]

Mine do this all the time, it drives me crazy. The trick, for me, is not to leave any eggs in the nest. Check out this picture of three hens on one nest. To my amazement, they hatched out 10 chicks this weekend. Now they are fighting over the chicks.

 

[CAmountaingirl]

R your girls bantam silkies? I have one and she is on the nest more than she is off. I give her a golf ball to sit on and collect the other hens eggs daily. She is the only bantam and sometimes the other regular sized hens sit on or along side her to lay even though we have several boxes. No rooster here, no fertile eggs to hatch. Unless the golf ball hatches, who knows..