Broody Hen Thread!

[TeaChick]

Anyone have any thoughts ? I'm baffled after so long ! No eggs at all!

I don't really know much about this, but she doesn't look like she's ready to start laying. Maybe it's just the lighting or the angle????
I hope everything works out well for you and her!

I'm glad I've been of some help. Normally, I would take this off list and correspond with you privately, but I am too much of an advocate for these kids and their parents. They and their caregivers need the rest of society to understand some of the extreme difficulties these kids and their families face. So, feel free to skip my ramblings. I just hope I don't get an email from a moderator reprimanding me for straying so far off topic....

Blooie, as Katie gets older, society will be less forgiving. It is one thing to have a 4-year-old have a melt down in public; a 9-year-old having a melt down elicits societal censor of the child and the family.

If eye contact is a big deal with her therapists, maybe you could teach her to look at lips. She will still be looking at faces and I don't think anyone will know the difference. I was deaf as a toddler from a measles infection and my hearing in the mid-range (human speech) has some deficits. I have never looked at people's eyes when they talk, instead looking at their mouths so I could lip read. I was about 50 before I realized that I needed to lip read to "hear" when an ear specialist pointed it out to me. I was completely unaware of why I didn't look in people's eyes.

I'm sorry to interrupt (and to be impertinent), but DD wants to know what breed the chicken in your avi is. =)

 

[jajeanpierre]

I'm sorry to interrupt (and to be impertinent), but DD wants to know what breed the chicken in your avi is. =)

Bearded Silver-laced Polish. I keep her top knot up off her face with tape so she can see. Without her top knot pulled up she would be basically blind. I wanted to name her Dahlia, after the flower. My son wanted to name her Walter. I lost.

Here's a picture taken the same day as my avatar. She was two-months old.

 

[darajosami]

It seems I have a third chicken wanting to go broody

I don't mind it but I only have two cages to use and I don't want to allow any to raise chicks in hen house as its not chick proof. Does anyone know how I can break this broody once i have the other two in the cages (picking up 2nd cage Saturday). I leave the hen-house open for the others to get in to lay there eggs in the nesting box. Will it hurt to let her sit and remove her eggs each evening?

Update on the eggs, So far it looks like atleast 15 are viable but I will check again in the next few days (will see how well I can see during the day as I am out the next few nights andn ot back until late

) Might try to check today perhaps under my jumper

. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Today is day 7, so considering they are bantam eggs and apparently they hatch around day 18, they will be due around 11/11

. Congrats to those with chicks born and goodluck to the rest of use.

 

[Blooie]

What a day. We started out with a clinker, as Katie would say. Went out to do chores early and check on Agatha to see if any more had hatched. Totally silent out there. I stood there for several minutes and there was no peeping, no nothing. Well, best advice not to disturb her be hanged - I made her get off the nest pronto. I found Scout at the back of the nest. He was on his side. His eyes were closed, his legs fully extended, and his head was thrown back. I was SICK. When I picked him up he wasn't stiff yet but there was no warmth at all. The stupid eggs were warm but he wasn't - he was way outside the circle of eggs. I couldn't detect any breathing either. Ken came in right behind me and I looked at him and said, "We lost Scout." I laid him on top of the broody and closed the coop up so none of the chickens, including Agatha, could get back in. I went into the house and got a glass of warm water and then went back out to the coop. I started water candling the eggs. One after the other - nothing. No sign of life at all.

I got about halfway through when I thought I detected a very slight movement from Scout, still laying on the broody table. I stared at him and saw it again. I grabbed that chick, threw him into my bra and hightailed it into the house, yelling at Ken to get a heating pad, the heat lamp and the box set up. He got that set up in the dishpan we had ready just in case. With the chick still in my bra I got the Vitamin B and mixed up some warm sugar water. The brooder box was heating nicely from the top and the bottom so I laid him in there. Ken looked at me and said, "Honey, he's gone. There's nothing you can do for him at this point." BULL!!! If Scout wasn't quitting neither was I. I got everything ready and then I opened his beak and dipped it in a drop of Vitamin B. I rubbed him gently and got a bit of a response. I put him back in the warm box and he pulled one leg in. I let him warm up for about 5 more minutes then I started the sugar water - same thing...just dipped his open beak in a couple of times but I didn't lift him out from under the light. I don't know enough about chicken anatomy to trust myself to just drop stuff into his mouth,either. I was afraid he might aspirate some of it. I went back out while he warmed some more and finished the eggs. Not a live one in the bunch, so they were all tossed. Back inside it was just dip, warm, dip, warm. The last time I dipped he made little chewing motions and he actually swallowed a little of it down. Within an hour he was flopping around in the brooder on his own. I kept making little clucks at him and he finally peeped back.

Well, by the time another hour passed his eyes were opened, he was standing, and cheeping like crazy. This is NOT what he looked like when I brought him into the house. This was him under the brooder light just looking around and making my heart melt.

This was about 2 hours after I started working on him. He drank some more sugar water and then some plain water. He was really making a racket by then so I put a mirror in with him. He really liked what he saw! Ken ground up some chick starter and scattered it on the paper towels, then I just put my finger in the little pile of it and sort of made scratching motions. He came over, investigated, and ate some of it! He pooped really good too! Yipppeeee!!

We think we know what happened. There were so many eggs under Agatha that once he ventured out he couldn't get back under her. She's not experienced enough to pull him back to her. She just sat there trying to hatch eggs that were dead and couldn't do anything for the one that was alive. After we felt he was strong enough, running all over the brooder, eating and drinking, we took him back out to Agatha. She headed right for the nest when we opened her door and stopped dead....where were the eggs? I took a deep breath and put Scout in there with her. She half stood up, pulled him under her and settled right back down. He's been out there all afternoon and every time I stand at the window I can hear him peeping and her talking to him.

I know everyone says to put chicks under the broody at night when she's sleeping but I wanted to do it during the day so if there were more problems I could get him back inside and take care of him in here. But I so wanted to give Agatha this opportunity to try when she didn't have to worry about the rest of the eggs, just Scout. I should add that we moved the broody setup to a basket nest that's in the coop so we could better monitor what's going on. In the totally closed nest she was in we couldn't tell anything unless he came to the front. This is what I saw when I checked on them just before we moved them:


And after, they like the new digs! She even took him out for a few minutes.



I know this is really long, and I appreciate your patience. Clinker alert cancelled!

 

[Blooie]

By the way, Ken says he won't mind the extra noise and the neighbors can go to, well, someplace warmer than here. If this little guy is a rooster he still STAYS!

 

[fisherlady]

great job!! Glad you found Scout in time to save him/her!! I'm sorry that none of the other eggs were viable....

 

[fisherlady]

By the way, Ken says he won't mind the extra noise and the neighbors can go to, well, someplace warmer than here. If this little guy is a rooster he still STAYS!

 

[SD Bird Lady]

Congrats!!! Love a happy ending

 

[jajeanpierre]

I know this is really long, and I appreciate your patience. Clinker alert cancelled!

Well, that wasn't fun, was it? It doesn't take much to chill them. I had a Silkie hatch a chick in the little coop I keep the little chickens in. The other Silkies were piled in to the same nest box. One-day-old baby fell out and not one noticed. Three Silkies in a nest box trying to sit on eggs and one poor chilled chick, peeping away in distress.

You might want to add some marbles or rocks to that waterer so the baby doens't get into trouble.

How many eggs did you have under the hen?

 

[Blooie]

Thanks, my friends! JaJean, I did that...just didn't have them handy when we first moved them. Just what I'd need, another clinker in the same day!

Edited to add: Sorry, forgot to answer your question. Short and sweet - too many! Ordered 12, 15 were shipped, one was beginning to have an odor a few days in so it went bye-bye. That left 14, then Scout hatched so there were still 13 eggs. Way too many for a rookie broodie and an equally rookie me! Live and learn, and boy, have I! The next broody gets broken pronto, unless it's summer time!