Day 18 and she kills a chick!?

[Shrader]

My broody hen has been sitting on a clutch of 5 eggs.
Today is day 18.
I just went in the coop to check on her,
and I noticed she had a little shell on her beak.
I lifted her up, and there was a crushed egg with an almost fully grown chick inside.
Why would she do this?

 

[GwenFarms]

Are you sure she has only been sitting 18 days? If a clutch runs over 21 days, they will check them for viability a few days after they were done and if they don't find baby, they'll leave the nest. Is she a first time broody? That could be it too.

 

[Shrader]

Definitely 18 days.
This is her first time broody.
Do you mean she might just be inexperienced?

 

[GwenFarms]

Quote:
Yeah thats probably what happened. I bet she will do better on her next hatch. I would leave her on the other eggs I think and see if she won't finish them out. She could possibly come off of them by in the morning though since she is already "checking for doneness". If she does let me know, you'll need to put them in a bator, if you don't have one let me know and I'll help you figure out a way to save them if you have to.

 

[Shrader]

Thanks Gwen.
I'll keep an eye on her.
It was really sad to find the little almost fully grown chick.
Maybe she'll stay put and hatch the others?

 

[babyboy1_mom]

My first time broody did the same thing. It was around day 18 and when I checked on her, there was a dead baby chick. It wasn't quite fully developed, but almost. I know that she broke the shell, because the baby's beak wasn't formed yet.

She ended up sitting on the remaining 9 eggs and hatched out 7 of those. Give her time and see what she does. Good luck.

Dorothy

 

[seriousbill]

One of my first-time broodies broke the shell on Day 20, but for her it was something like Day 25, because I had ordered eggs to put under her when she went broody. She didn't kill the chick, but she bloodied him up. She hatched the rest out just fine. That's interesting, Gwenfarms. Something to keep in mind for those of us who put shipped eggs under our broodies.

 

[GwenFarms]

Bill I generally use wilder breeds, mostly game chickens as broodies. They hatch my guinea eggs for me and I find they can sit two clutches back to back. I pull out their first clutch on day 20 and put their second under them, but the more refined breeds will do this...sometimes games will to, but they seem more prone to stay broody.

 

[Anne]

Often my broodies will accidentally break an egg at some point during incubation. Once it is broken and the chick is dead, they often eat it (they're hungry!).