Chicken really wants to be mother but...

[Bantam lover132]

I have this hen who laid two eggs (1 fertile, 1 not fertile). She got up and demolished the fertile egg and did not eat it, then sat on the not fertile egg. WHAT. Why did she do that?

 

[Top Rooster]

Do you have another fertile egg available ? How far along was the egg? She most likely did it by accident.

 

[Bantam lover132]

Do you have another fertile egg available ? How far along was the egg? She most likely did it by accident.

Definitely not an accident, she picked it up by her beak and crushed it.

 

[Top Rooster]

So you saw her break it? Hens will often push an egg out if it died.

 

[Bantam lover132]

So you saw her break it? Hens will often push an egg out if it died.

She just laid the egg, also she lives inside, we let run around the house and she goes back in the crate when she's done. She lived(es) in a crate, it happened when I was moving her to a bin so a hen that was laying an egg can use it (the egg she was laying broke while it was coming out ) and then in the bin she crushed it.

 

[barred2rock]

She crushed it because it's her instinct to clean up any unviable (broken) eggs to reduce the potential of predators. She can't know the other is infertile.

 

[Bantam lover132]

She crushed it because it's her instinct to clean up any unviable (broken) eggs to reduce the potential of predators.

So it is because we touched it? We touched the not fertile egg, that's weird

 

[barred2rock]

So it is because we touched it? We touched the not fertile egg, that's weird

Didn't you say the egg was broken as it was being laid?

 

[Bantam lover132]

Didn't you say the egg was broken as it was being laid?

No not that egg a different egg

 

[barred2rock]

No not that egg a different egg

Hmm, I really don't know then.