buff orph. first time broody..sitting on different age eggs

[LyndaNks]

Any advice is appreciated, thanks in advance.

I have a 1st time broody buff orph. laying on a clutch of eggs right now and it is day 26 (today Monday) and only 1 chick has hatched (on Sunday morning). The day we noticed she started laying we put it on the calendar and then 2 days later we saw her out to eat and poop went to look in the coop (a small coop which only has 1 nesting box in) and another hen was in there laying an egg..so this went on for like 3 days with different hens in and out overtime she came out. When we were able to get the small coop into our barn where she was left alone and no other chickens allowed i started candling the eggs. She is a very sweet hen and allowed us to do this when we brought her off the nest to eat and drink (very little) but atlast it was something. we did come home a couple of days to rotten open ones and cleaned out nest each time this happened. So now we got her down to 9 eggs and I have been candling them each night bc she allows me to and all eggs seem different ages. My questions are:
-Will she keep sitting on the nest until they are all hatched? (no i don't have an incubator)
-The baby chick that hatched on Sunday (day 26) is still under her wing and she has not brought her out to eat or drink, will she? or will we need to feed the baby chick after so many days?
-Also, the hen we have had to pick up and bring off nest to get her to eat and she has been alone in this small coop and has NOT pooped in like over 7 days now (barely eating so maybe this is normal?)
-How many days should we let her set on all the other eggs? just curious..

This is our first experience with a broody, thanks again for all the help.

 

[Pyxis]

No, she likely won't keep sitting on the nest until they've all hatched. She will abandon the unhatched ones to take care of her chicks. Or, if she does continue to sit on them, which is much less likely but could happen, that would mean she's not taking care of her chicks, and they would die because she would not be taking them to eat and drink.

She will take her to eat and drink if scenario one that I detailed above happens. A hen will usually remain on the nest for a day or two after the first egg hatches to give the rest a chance, and after that she starts to care for the chicks.

She's likely been pooping when you have taken her out to eat. Hens don't poop in their nest, they poop when they get up to eat and drink. If she hadn't pooped, she'd be very sick by now.

If she doesn't get off the nest to take care of the chick tomorrow, take the rest of the unhatched eggs away, or take the chick away and raise it in a brooder and let her try to hatch the rest of the eggs. You may want to borrow an incubator if you want to try to save the rest of the eggs.

Also I just wanted to let you know that there's no 'ph' in orpington You see that a lot for some reason, but the breed name is orpington with no 'ph', and as far as I know it isn't pronounced with the 'ph' sound either, so I'm not sure how that got started.

 

[LyndaNks]

lol yes you are correct ORP...i actually did know that and i don't even know why i typed orph it auto corrected so many times bc i was trying to shorten it, who knows. lol
Anyways..she actually hasn't pooped bc we have her in a coop all by herself that has an area for her to step out of the nesting box and nothing else on the floor of the area where the food is so no poop at all!!! and no they won't go in their nests so thats why I was curious if anyone else has noticed their hen NOT pooping. The only other thing that could be happening is she is eating it completely gone, which i doubt. She has not been off that nest in that small coop for days thats why we were lifting her off it to get her to eat and drink which was soo little. She is so weak and I'm afraid she has sat too long already so thats why i was asking what I should do if by tomorrow (day 3) of the 1 baby hatching and she still has not brought that baby out to eat bc now i have paper towels down in the brooding area where i put starter for the baby and nothing is moved or touched.

Thanks for advice

 

[Pyxis]

Oh yes in that case I would definitely take the unhatched eggs tomorrow and just let her have the one chick so she can start to eat and get into good condition again

 

[LyndaNks]

Thats my plan then... thanks so much!

Oh yes in that case I would definitely take the unhatched eggs tomorrow and just let her have the one chick so she can start to eat and get into good condition again

 

[sourland]

Great advice from Pyxis. You might want to try rigging up some sort of heating system for the remaining eggs. - hot water bottle, light bulb being careful that the temp does not exceed 100 F. Slightly lower will be better than higher. Good luck.

 

[LyndaNks]

Great advice from Pyxis. You might want to try rigging up some sort of heating system for the remaining eggs. - hot water bottle, light bulb being careful that the temp does not exceed 100 F. Slightly lower will be better than higher. Good luck.

We actually just went to the farm store and bought an incubator so we can try to hatch the rest of the eggs if she gets up off the nest tomorrow or maybe another will hatch tonight

Now i have to figure out this incubator so i can be ready