Broody Hens, DAY 40!!!!, no chicks....

[jauslong]

This one has me stumped. Last year, we let our broody hens hatch chicks and they did so flawlessly.

This year, 3 of our hens started to brood, and have amassed a very sizeable pile of eggs. I calendared day 21 and anxiously awaited adorable chicks. No luck. Another week went by. I noticed that some of the hens will leave the nest a little more often than I recall last year, and I started to worry they are sitting on dead eggs.

So, one day, I noticed they had a couple eggs abandoned and half of them were cool to the touch. I figured, oh ok, this must be a dead egg, let's get it out of here. So, I took it out (there are probably 30-40 eggs total they are sitting on), and away from the chickens, and cracked it out to see what was going on with these dead eggs. Well...., egg wasn't dead. There was an embroynic chick in there, and I can make out a beating heart.

Ok, so, I give it another week. Come across the same thing the next week, another cool egg. This one feels different than the others, so, this one MUST be the dead egg, right? (Because, after all, there are multiple, 5 week old eggs that must no be viable that these chickens are sitting on) I'm worrying that maybe dead eggs are going to harm the living eggs, and trying to find a way to differentiate (I realize that candling eggs is a thing. I've tried it and didn't have much luck getting to see anything there, maybe I'm doing it wrong.)

OK, so I find another cool egg, feels different than the others. I take it out, crack it open. It's a nearly fully formed chick. That's not good. OK, so, I'm not going to crack any more eggs open like that, many of these eggs are obviously developing, but I am so baffled now. I am coming up on another 21 days from the first 21 days and am not sure what to expect.

This morning, I checked for chicks and I find two hens left the nest (temporarily I hope), and I look at the eggs. There is a terrible terrible stench coming from there. One of the eggs is cracked open, has a black film inside and is emitting a smell that is best described as belonging in the 9th circle of hell. I took that cracked one out, tried to put some fresh straw over the mess that it made and tried to move the eggs a little bit away from that egg.

So, now I've got questions. What do you think happened here? And why would eggs not hatch at all after a month, but when inspected later, some are still viable? I mean, obviously they are adding eggs to the pile as time goes on, but wouldn't the thing that killed the first batch also kill the second batch? Has anyone had this problem before? I've tried to google an answer but not found anything that helpful.

I do think that some eggs may eventually hatch, but I'm trying to find an explaination as to what happened, so this doesn't occur again. The best hypothesis I've got right now is that perhaps there were too many eggs and the hens either couldn't keep all of them warm, or perhaps crushed a few of them and they rotted out?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[I am the Walrus]

Buy an incubator so when you get into such a mess as this you can always try to salvage viable eggs. Broody hens are unpredictable. Without micromanaging the eggs/air cells/marking them to make sure they are turned often and of course the new eggs keep piling up deal.
Having a back up oven or two would be a good get out of jail free card right about now.

 

[Farm life101]

We used a flashlight on our eggs in a dark room and it worked GREAT. Maybe try that. And if they don’t stay sitting on them all that might be because the hen has to many eggs under try reducing the egg amount to 6 or 7 and see if they stay on all those if not then just get an incubator.

 

[Jbently28]

Sounds to me like your hens may be sneaking in new eggs. I had to separate my broody hens from the rest of the flock because eggs were getting crushed by the other hens. They were literally sitting under my broody hens laying eggs and crushing others at the same time. Sounds like you could have a staggered clutch going on. I would try again to candle and number each egg. Keep a record of each egg and what you observe. If you go back and find an egg that hasn't been numbered than you know that another hen is sneaking in additional eggs. I just recently had this happen and had no idea what day the egg was on. Some on here thought 10 days, some 15, etc. 2 days ago that chick hatched way earlier than expected.

 

[jauslong]

Thanks all, this is helpful.

 

[as110]

I had (still have) a broody 2 months ago. She was sitting on 15 eggs. To make that long story short, 5 eggs were unfertilized, 5 were broken (some rotted and stinky) and 5 had full grown chickens that died. Nothing hatched, I assumed good eggs were infected by the rotten broken eggs.
The hen did not give up brooding so I put her back into the coop and figured she could sit there if she wants to, eventually she would give it up and leave the nest. I left a few eggs under her marked just in case she got the idea what to do and she could do better without me interfering. Then I realized that 1/3 of the previous clutch was unfertile, which is weird given that there were 5 roosters for 15 hens so the eggs must have been old too.

Hens were adding eggs every time she got off to eat and poop. She was sitting in everybody’s favourite nest. I was happy the eggs were never left to cool off. I started to leave those eggs and every few days I would loosely candle to see if there were any unfertilized eggs. I kept removing empty eggs until one day I realized all my markings rubbed off. Now I didn’t know which eggs were at what stage. I left her alone until day 21, and that night I stole all of her eggs, moved them into the incubator and replaced them with 5 new 2 day old chickens that I picked up from a nearby breeder so she would finish her brooding cycle with live chickens.

Broody hen was soooo happy. I was hoping the eggs would hatch and I could add new chickens in the next few days. This was last saturday, 9 days ago. Well, sometime last week I floated the eggs after I candled them a few times. I removed the empty ones and those that were fertilized but failed the float test. I had 4 eggs alive, including one that was cracked but did not pip, I closed the crack with duct tape and left it in there because it is a blue egg and I didn’t see anything on candling and I could not float it. I figured if it was alive, it still had a chance, if it had to die I would have time to remove it.

I’ll be damned, the broken egg hatched yesterday morning and the chickie is doing fine, minus that it is lonely. Today I put it into a box to eat and drink with a heat lanp. Earlier this evening I tried to sneak it under the broody hen with the 4 9 day old chicks (1 died on the second day under her, I assume it got trampled).
She thought the third world war started. She looked at the little one and pecked. I pecked her back.
I moved the chick away. When the hen sat down and the chickens settled, I sneaked the little one under her. Baby was was sooo happy. Finally it was warm and quietly chirped. I stayed in the coop for another hour to watch. I didn’t want to find a dead chicken in the morning.

When the little ones came out to eat, hen stood up and walked to eat too. Baby chick didn’t know what to do but followed the warm and I put her close to the other chicks to see what to do. Hen started to make a nest and trampled the new chick then moved to make another nest. Little chicks went under her, little black baby followed but stopped in front of her and cried. She started to peck again and I removed the baby. I thought she would accept it but she didn’t. I almost cried with the baby chick. It could be that it has a different colour from the other ones, or it is half the size of the 9 day old chicks. I don’t know but she did not accept the baby chick.

I was planning to get another baby chick for company. While I sat down for dinner, I heard chirping in the kitchen. My baby is in my bedroom. I thought I was hallucinating, checked again and the incubator was chirping. I don’t believe it! In the next half hour the second chicken hatched. It is now 2 hours old and can walk with curled toes, which it could not before, just rolled on its back. I don’t need to buy another buddy chicken. Yay!

Since I don’t know how old the eggs were when I moved them into the incubator, I removed the turner and assumed lockdown. Day 1 was may 13. Hatching day was june 2. The first chicken hatched on day 29 and the second one on day 30 so these eggs were added a week after broody restarted her cycle.

I really didn’t want more chickens in the house but it is what it is. I don’t have another broody hen and this one is inexperienced. This is her first time and I don’t really trust that she will be able to protect the little ones when they are allowed to leave the coop.