Broody Silkie & Choosing Eggs

[Rachnicko]

Hi! I’m new here... so hope my posting is right...

Unfortunately one of my hens died yesterday (that’s another story) but I’ve decided to ‘replace’ her since my Silkie is broody. I now have 3 hens and a cockerel which we had from day-olds around this time last year.

I put a couple of our own eggs under Jet the Silkie yesterday, but today I have purchased some Polish hatching eggs online. Assuming they don’t get here until Tuesday at the earliest, that will be 3 days difference in starting incubating. I guess my question is... is this ok?

Also, I’m only really looking to add a couple more to my small backyard flock, so not knowing fertility rates, how many would anyone recommend starting with, and is it ok to candle during incubation and then to remove some (even if they are viable) so we only end up with 2 or 3 chicks?

Photo of broody Jet added for fun she added the coat of shavings herself!

 

[sourland]

Hens generally leave the nest within 36 hours of the first egg hatching. This may put the Polish eggs in jeopardy. You can remove the 'early' chicks immediately upon hatching or have an incubator on standby just in case the hen breaks broodiness. Good luck.

 

[Rachnicko]

Ok thank you!
I’ll see when the eggs get here and may decide to just leave the couple she’s already sitting on.

 

[Rachnicko]

Just an update here...

Jet is sitting on 8 bantam eggs.
2 are due to hatch next Saturday 30th May, then the other 6 are due to hatch on Wednesday 3rd June.

She seems like a very determined broody and we have had to remove her from the nest every evening for her to eat, drink, poop, dust bathe, and run round and screech like a maniac... she just doesn’t want to leave those eggs of her own accord. She’s off the nest up to half an hour but sometimes less.

Should we ‘lock down’ and not move her after day 18?

When you said we can move the early hatchers (fingers crossed of course)... is it best to do this straight away, even assuming the chicks are still wet? And put them straight under a brooder? We don’t have an incubator, just a brooder heat plate that we used for the day-olds we had last year, so I hope this will be ok.

 

[Rachnicko]

We’re day 19 for the first 2 eggs and I’ve heard chirping! I don’t want to disturb the broody or eggs, so I don’t know if they’ve pipped, but any idea how long it usually takes to hatch from after you hear chirping?

 

[Rachnicko]

I wondered if anyone could advise again...

So we have 2 chicks in the brooder who hatched last Friday (day 20) - the early part of the staggered hatch, who we removed from the broody so she stayed sitting on the rest of the eggs.

Today is day 21 for the remaining Polish eggs. One of them hatched at midday yesterday (so again day 20). However, since the one, we haven’t heard anything from the other 5 eggs.

When should I worry that we only had 1 out of 6 hatch? Is it too late for me to try and candle? I’m also conscious that Jet the broody hasn’t been off the nest for several days, and has only been hand fed food and water (so she hasn’t pooped).

I’m wondering if we could have a tricky situation to try and re-introduce 2 chicks to a broody who only has 1.