- Nov 22, 2015
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Hi everyone (sorry for the long post)
We recently had 3 of our hens go broody - our 3 Black Marans. The first one started sitting on her small clutch of 5 eggs (3 were fake) about 25 days ago. But shortly after she did, her two sisters started to take turns with her or go in the nest box next to her and find other eggs to sit on. I tried to manage it but since they are identical, I was losing the battle of which mama should be on the eggs. We put the color bands on them to help identify the first mama. I thought I had everything handled until I moved her to her private space and saw that it was the the sister (not the original mama) and now she somehow had 9 eggs instead of 5.
I removed the 3 fake eggs so she continued to sit on the 6 "potential" babies. On day 20, 2 little cuties peaked out from under her and we were so excited. Meanwhile, the original mama hen continues to sit in her nest box - sometimes on eggs, sometimes not, seemingly waiting for something to hatch.
Yesterday (day 24), I decided to candle the remaining 4 eggs to see if anything was even growing. I was worried that the new mama would continue to sit and not take care of her babies. Sure enough, all 4 eggs have chicks growing - but they range from probably day 8 - 12 - clearly not hatching soon.
Now to my question.....
I think the new mama needs to care for her two chicks and I wondered if I could put them in their own little private space and then move the original mama (who's still sitting in a nest box) on these 4 eggs to finish it out the hatch? I worry that the baby chicks need their mama and that waiting another 1-2 weeks is too long to let the new mama sit - but I really don't know since this is my first time with a broody hen.
Would love any input!
Thank you in advance!
Susan
We recently had 3 of our hens go broody - our 3 Black Marans. The first one started sitting on her small clutch of 5 eggs (3 were fake) about 25 days ago. But shortly after she did, her two sisters started to take turns with her or go in the nest box next to her and find other eggs to sit on. I tried to manage it but since they are identical, I was losing the battle of which mama should be on the eggs. We put the color bands on them to help identify the first mama. I thought I had everything handled until I moved her to her private space and saw that it was the the sister (not the original mama) and now she somehow had 9 eggs instead of 5.
I removed the 3 fake eggs so she continued to sit on the 6 "potential" babies. On day 20, 2 little cuties peaked out from under her and we were so excited. Meanwhile, the original mama hen continues to sit in her nest box - sometimes on eggs, sometimes not, seemingly waiting for something to hatch.
Yesterday (day 24), I decided to candle the remaining 4 eggs to see if anything was even growing. I was worried that the new mama would continue to sit and not take care of her babies. Sure enough, all 4 eggs have chicks growing - but they range from probably day 8 - 12 - clearly not hatching soon.
Now to my question.....
I think the new mama needs to care for her two chicks and I wondered if I could put them in their own little private space and then move the original mama (who's still sitting in a nest box) on these 4 eggs to finish it out the hatch? I worry that the baby chicks need their mama and that waiting another 1-2 weeks is too long to let the new mama sit - but I really don't know since this is my first time with a broody hen.
Would love any input!
Thank you in advance!
Susan