Broody jumping ship! Hatching now...

[Sarahal88]

I came home from work today to discover that my eggs, which were being incubated in the coop, are hatching! It's only partway through day 19, so that caught me off guard.

The broody who was incubating the eggs was off the eggs when i checked on the flock around 5:45pm. I gave her at least 45 minutes and she still wasn't returning to the nest. So, I stole her eggs and gave them to another broody who has also been sitting for a long time to see if she would finish the job.

Should I have waited longer for her to return to the nest? I gave the eggs to her in the first place because she seemed less flaky than the other broody. Neither have incubated before and this is my first time letting a broody in the coop with the other hens. We'll see how it goes I guess. They aren't high stakes eggs so I was willing to take some risk. Good thing I had a backup, I guess....

 

[Kiki]

If neither of them have hatched out chicks before you won't know until you try it.
There is no set in stone rule on how a broody will act.
Sometimes they do good and sometimes they kill all the babies, so keep a close eye on the chicks when they finish hatching.

 

[Sarahal88]

Thanks.....finally the original broody came back to the nest. I decided to split the difference and giver her back a couple of eggs. Now I can test them both out and see how they do. Guess I'll cross my fingers that all's well in the morning, as I'm sure at least two will finish hatching over night.

 

[Kiki]

Good luck!
Post pics of the babies too!

 

[Sarahal88]

So, All 5 eggs were viable but one couldn't complete the hatching process. Of the remaining 4 chicks, 2 have some kind of injury on their heads - each was hatched under a different hen. POssibly a peck injury, but by the time I saw them, both mamma hens were lovingly raising their two chicks, so I'm not sure. One seems to be missing or have an injured eye. See photo. Not exactly a wild success, but one thing I'm happy about is the way the two moms seems to be working together to raise the chicks. The chicks seem to go back and forth between the two, and the two moms don't fight each at all. They seem to just be hanging out together, like a mom's playdate. Could those injuries come from anything besides pecking by the mother? I don't think the chicks had a chance to be exposed to the other chickens because they were still being completely covered all the time when I noticed the injuries.

 

[Sarahal88]

Here is the pic that shows the injured chicks.

 

[WVduckchick]

Congrats!
Broodies and babies have to be one of my favorite parts of raising chickens.

Maybe the chick with the injury was stuck in the shell, and one of the hens "helped" it out? Or it could even have been one of the other chicks. Doesn't look too bad, but make sure the others aren't picking at it because it's red. You can dab a little Neosporin on it, that will help it not get infected, plus the others won't peck at the goo as much.