My Buff leghorn hen hid away a nest on me or I wouldnt let her brood this late in the season. Finally found it about 2 weeks into it so let her keep the eggs. She is an acceptional mother so why not.
Well the nest was off the ground(elevated feed trough in the old barn) and first chick that hatches falls out and goes into hiding in the wall.......... darn it..... well momma goes into hysterical mode and goes off the nest and is just frantic looking for the chick(which was sadly never found).
I was never sure of exact hatch date so I only check every few days, yesterday at noon I seen the hen tho(you never see her, she feeds etc like a ghost, never to be seen). So I went to look whats wrong and her nest was stone cold, 2 eggs cheeping at me(very weakly) when I touched them. I guess she has been off it for about an hour or so.
The last week we had a cold snap and we got a bit of snow on the ground already too, so its around freezing. I gave these eggs no hope of recovering, but couldnt just let them die either so off I went to dust off the bator, get it heated and put the poor things in. Miracle up on miracle, this am 3 chickies were hatched and cheeping at me, and I candled the rest and all but one seem to be alive and ready to hatch!!!!!
Boy these momma incubated eggies are tough, when I incubate I just have to breathe on them wrong and the whole hatch fails.... these guys came back from being almost froze to death!!
Fingers crossed my poor luck in hatching in a bator will not stop these little guys from hatching
Am gonna post some pics of these lucky little survivors once most have hatched.
Well the nest was off the ground(elevated feed trough in the old barn) and first chick that hatches falls out and goes into hiding in the wall.......... darn it..... well momma goes into hysterical mode and goes off the nest and is just frantic looking for the chick(which was sadly never found).
I was never sure of exact hatch date so I only check every few days, yesterday at noon I seen the hen tho(you never see her, she feeds etc like a ghost, never to be seen). So I went to look whats wrong and her nest was stone cold, 2 eggs cheeping at me(very weakly) when I touched them. I guess she has been off it for about an hour or so.
The last week we had a cold snap and we got a bit of snow on the ground already too, so its around freezing. I gave these eggs no hope of recovering, but couldnt just let them die either so off I went to dust off the bator, get it heated and put the poor things in. Miracle up on miracle, this am 3 chickies were hatched and cheeping at me, and I candled the rest and all but one seem to be alive and ready to hatch!!!!!
Boy these momma incubated eggies are tough, when I incubate I just have to breathe on them wrong and the whole hatch fails.... these guys came back from being almost froze to death!!
Fingers crossed my poor luck in hatching in a bator will not stop these little guys from hatching
Am gonna post some pics of these lucky little survivors once most have hatched.
They are due to hatch tomorrowish, and in candling them most looked like they should. So we have them warmed up now with a light - not the best, but we're trying! Hoping they are tough like yours!
