FriendlyJicken
In the Brooder
Hello everyone. Recently, one of my Barred Rock hens went broody and tried to hatch some eggs. However, the hatch dates ended up being weeks apart from each other. So, she started to neglect her eggs and pay more attention to the one chick that did hatch. We didn't want to risk the eggs dying because of this, so we moved them to an incubator. However, we made the mistake of covering it at night to block the light, since the only place we could put it was a room someone slept in. The incubator reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit that night. I'm not sure how long it was that hot, though. So, I have 3 main concerns.
1) Do the eggs have any chance of surviving? I know things like this usually depend on the chick, but does anyone know if 117 degrees is definitely lethal to any chick or not?
2) I plan to let the mother hen raise the chicks if/when they hatch. How should I go about introducing them? I've always heard that you should do it late or at night, and to make it seem like the chicks just hatched from eggs that were under the hen. Is there anything else I should know about introducing them, especially since there is an older chick being cared for by the same hen right now?
3) Should we have taken the eggs in the first place? Would it have been safer just to let the hen handle things?
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope I can receive answers soon.
1) Do the eggs have any chance of surviving? I know things like this usually depend on the chick, but does anyone know if 117 degrees is definitely lethal to any chick or not?
2) I plan to let the mother hen raise the chicks if/when they hatch. How should I go about introducing them? I've always heard that you should do it late or at night, and to make it seem like the chicks just hatched from eggs that were under the hen. Is there anything else I should know about introducing them, especially since there is an older chick being cared for by the same hen right now?
3) Should we have taken the eggs in the first place? Would it have been safer just to let the hen handle things?
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope I can receive answers soon.
