Broody Hen Thread!

[The Golden Egg5]

Great picture! Good luck with your hatch!

Thank you! I can't wait!

 

[SueT]

, make some provision to seal off the nest area from the other

Update a week later, the Sebright pullet on 3 eggs is on day 10
I decided to eliminate the possiblility of the other pullets getting into her milk crate nest. They are leghorns and quite pushy, and they were definitely interested in the nest especially when the broody was off for her daily constitutional. Because they have to jump down into it, I was really afraid they would break the eggs. I created a private apartment around the nest about 6 sq ft, with food and water. I waited for her first foray out of the nest. She totally freaked out when she saw she couldn't get out. She had no interest in food or water, she just wanted to fly at the partition. So after a few minutes, I let her out and when she was ready to come back, I let her back in. I could see this wasn't going to work and planned to remove the entire thing next day. But instead I created an opening, about 5" square. The others have not tried to get in the small doorway. So far. And she came out yesterday and went back in, no problem. I marked the eggs since there is another bantam, a d'uccle, who isn't yet laying, but may soon. The Sebright is small, but she is fierce, and I think she'll be a good protector of the chicks if and when they hatch.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I had a hen disappear, I didn't know how long she was gone. Then today I saw her again in my coop! She was acting all weird too. Then she disappeared again. I thought she left the coop, because I looked all over 3x in the coop which is about 1/4 acre or so, then all the outside areas of the coop and could find anything, then I went around the outside one more time, and saw her inside the coop on the fence line by a rock pile. Since she was the same color as a rock I didn't see her. she was sitting on 12 empty eggs, had to be at least a month old contents were all dried up, (no rooster) Earlier in the season I had given her and another hen eggs to hatch from a diff farm. When the eggs hatched I gave the babies to the other mom. Well she must have been mad at me and decided to hoard/hatch her own.

 

[User395221]

and decided to hoard/hatch her own.

The poor little thing My paulina didn't get included in the hatching of the eggs she was helping sit on, she just carried on sitting there by herself (I have stuck some eggs under her because I felt sorry for her, hopefully they are still there, because she bites and I can't really check on them. )

 

[gimmie birdies]

I gave her fresh eggs- have young roos, don't know if there are "delivering" yet.

 

[JefferyEarl]

Pls help!

I'm very new at this and am devastated with what has happened this morning....

I read here somewhere that you can do a float test to see if there are any duds in with her other eggs. We have 4 chicks now and nothing has hatched in the last 4 days. So I removed the sinkers thinking they were duds but after cracking them open I could see that they were not. So stopped and returned them to mom.

Any and all advice is much appreciated

Thanks

 

[Redhead Rae]

One of my 8.5 month old Buff Orpington hens went broody about 3 weeks ago. I was hoping that one of them would go broody soon. I took a few days to confirm that she was indeed broody and then I gave her a dozen eggs from my Black Cochin Roo (Avatar pic) and my Dominique and Dominique cross hens. In the first week we lost two of the eggs. I suspect because one of my Doms had been laying thin shelled eggs. I candled the remaining 10 eggs at 9-10 days and they were all wiggly and developing. I candled them again last night and I still have 10 babies developing and moving. Hopefully we'll have some fresh hatched chicks by Saturday or Sunday!

 

[Redhead Rae]

Pls help!

I'm very new at this and am devastated with what has happened this morning....

I read here somewhere that you can do a float test to see if there are any duds in with her other eggs. We have 4 chicks now and nothing has hatched in the last 4 days. So I removed the sinkers thinking they were duds but after cracking them open I could see that they were not. So stopped and returned them to mom.

Any and all advice is much appreciated

Thanks

The float test is administered to eating eggs to see if they've gone bad, not to hatching eggs. You can candle the eggs to see if there is anything inside them. Go into a dark room and hold a flash light to the egg with your hand wrapped around the edge of the light to prevent light from shining around the edges. At this point, if all you can see is solid black, there is a chance the eggs could hatch. If you can see light inside the egg, it is a dud.

I gave one of my hens 8 eggs earlier this year. I candled them all early on (7 days into incubating) and I could see veins developing and small wiggly shadows. A few days before hatching I tried candling a couple of the eggs and couldn't see any light inside the shell (except in the air pocket at one end of the egg) the chicks were too big to let light in. One day 7 of the eggs hatched. 24 hours after the last egg hatched I candled the remaining egg and I could see light all through the egg. It wasn't much more developed than when I candled it the first time.

 

[JefferyEarl]

The float test is administered to eating eggs to see if they've gone bad, not to hatching eggs. You can candle the eggs to see if there is anything inside them. Go into a dark room and hold a flash light to the egg with your hand wrapped around the edge of the light to prevent light from shining around the edges. At this point, if all you can see is solid black, there is a chance the eggs could hatch. If you can see light inside the egg, it is a dud.

I gave one of my hens 8 eggs earlier this year. I candled them all early on (7 days into incubating) and I could see veins developing and small wiggly shadows. A few days before hatching I tried candling a couple of the eggs and couldn't see any light inside the shell (except in the air pocket at one end of the egg) the chicks were too big to let light in. One day 7 of the eggs hatched. 24 hours after the last egg hatched I candled the remaining egg and I could see light all through the egg. It wasn't much more developed than when I candled it the first time.

There is a sticky here that says to do the float test to see if eggs are viable. There is so much conflicting things in here. Can chickens lay bad eggs?

 

[JefferyEarl]

Another question for you. I always get an egg that looks like the pic I uploaded. Suspect it's the same hen who is bald on her bottom some reason the feathers won't grow back.