Well my first time hatching eggs was with an incubator, but I did have a couple of broodies hatch out eggs. Cochin are annoying broody. I once had 20 nesting boxes in the coup for my 28 hens and every nesting box contained a broody hen or two. There was maybe 3 hens that weren't broody. It was nuts. I'm not supposed to let them stay broody because my parents and my parents are a bit unhappy with right now how many chickens I currently have (they don't want more chicks). It stated out as a 12 chicken flock but then I started hatching, and I just had to keep just a couple of chicks from every hatch. But there was a couple of times where I got away with it. Like, we went on vacation for 5 days and since they are cochins, they all got to keep their eggs for those days and they all turned broody. I choose 2 hens and put all of the eggs over the vactaion under them. (cochins don't lay very much) I told my parents how 5 days was a lot of development and that their hearts start beating once they are 2 days old, so I can't just kill them. So they agreed. hehehe. Twice, I simply claimed that the hen made a nest in a place that I had never looked before (very posible) and candled them saying, I can't kill them. And they let it go. I guess I don't have a real story, but I just love how the little ones (once they hatch) follow the mother hen everywhere. Everything that mom pecks, they have to peck. It's just so sweet. I usually hatch in the incuabotor on the few oppurtunities that they allow it, (usually meaning I have to sell all or most of the chicks) I love the hands on experience of incubating them myself. It's a lot of work (depending on the incubator) but it's so rewarding. Right now, I'm ordering some silver laced cochin bantam hatching eggs to hatch. I'm so excited for these chickens, but in order for my parents to allow me to get them, I have to sell a bunch of my current chickens... but it's not that bad. I have my favorites, and then I have well, the other chcikens (but I still love them). This is much longer than I thought it'd be, ohh well.
Wait! I do have kinda a story. I was so excited for this one broody hen, she was on like day 15. One night I went down and 2 of the eggs were missing, I was disappointed and I didn't know what happened, but I brushed it off. The next night, all 6 remaining eggs were gone. Broody was still there looking like she was incubating, but there was nothing underneath. I couldn't believe it. They wasn't any egg shells or anything in the coop, our chickens aren't egg eaters, there was a mess where an egg may have eben opened or smashed. They were just gone. I was pretty bummed being that they got the far and then vanished. Like a week later, I saw an empty feed bag in front of the coop door (the coop is inside the barn) and it had 8 broken egg shells that had been licked clean. I'm not sure, but I think an animal may have gotten them, but eggs never disappeared again and the mother hen would have fought to protect her eggs. I just don't know what happened.
