Broody Serama - First Time - Questions

[HunniB]

We have 5 Serama bantams - 4 hens and one cock (The cock, we have had for about 5 or 6 weeks). One of the hens has gone broody and has been sitting in her nest box for several days now. I have not seen anyone else join her in there at all and she is now sitting on 6 eggs (I swear it was 4 yesterday!).

This is the first time that we have had the possibility of actually hatching chicks since we never had a cock before now. So, now I have tons of questions -

1) I have read here on the board that the usual incubation is about 3 weeks. Is that about right? My husband says we should date the eggs in there so that we can sort of keep track (but of course, we didn't do that for these first 6).

2) Speaking of 6 - how many should we let her sit on? It seems pretty full under her right now and my thought is that if any more eggs show up, we should pull them out - thoughts?

3) I have put crumble and water directly in front of her, just outside her little nest. She has NO interest. I have picked her up and put her in front of the water, even putting a bit on her beak and she basically just sits there in her broody "coma" and eventually gets up and settles right back into the nest. I am worried that she will whither away! I am going to try and give her some yoghurt and see if she will eat that. All my chickens (we have Amerucana's as well) love the yoghurt (plain - organic) so maybe that will stimulate her. Should I be worried, or is she getting up when I am not there and I am just being silly??

4) Once we have chicks, what the heck do we do? Right now, the nest box she is in is on a wire shelf in our ventilated greenhouse. All 5 Serama's share the greenhouse (with free range access to the outside) and roost above the top shelf (she is on the 2nd shelf of three). I was thinking that I should put boarding on the nest shelf (since it is wire) add a front edge (so the chicks don't fall off) and just let her stay on that shelf with the chicks until ... ??? - they are old enough to ... ??? I am concerned about how the integration will take place, where they will sleep until they are old enough to be able to fly up to the roost, will the cock kill them...all these things.

Sorry if all these questions seem so very basic, but I figured that is what this board is for and I am SO thankful it is here.

Thanks!!

 

[DebbieF]

Seramas incubate in 19 days, I don't have time to answer any other questions, maybe later today I can.

 

[welasharon]

My little serama just hatched her three. It was traumatizing for me. I finally just left her the heck alone. She got out and ate and drank and made a huge poop. Screamed at everything. Scrambled around slinging sand everywhere and went back to the eggs. She managed fine in spite of me! LOL I would go ahead and put her on the floor. My nest box was set up on two cinder blocks and once they hatched I realized there was no way that would work. A day or so after they hatch she starts taking them out of the box and shows them how to eat and drink. Then they had to be able to get back in the box. I have sand on the bottom and it is really nice with such tiny babies. They are so very little. You need a waterer so they don't drown in a bowl of water. It doesn't take much for them to drown. Also, something that helped me was the broody hen thread on here. Since mine too kept laying I realized I needed to mark the eggs and take out new ones. If the hatch is too staggered they may give up on the later ones.
sharon