Okay, I have been doing quite a bit of research on broody hens and how the process works, as well how to encourage a hen to go broody.
The natural process is that a hen will lay a single egg every day for roughly 12 days or so, then once she feels she has a large enough clutch, she will start to incubate. So, theoretically speaking, if I were to just NOT collect eggs for a while and one of the hens decided to go broody, she could successfully hatch them, right?
Okay, well, what if I collected about a dozen eggs over a 5 day period (keeping them on my dresser in my room) and then just put them all back out into a nest box? If it took 4 days for a hen to go broody on them, could they still hatch?
I'm guessing the air temperature plays a major roll in viability while the eggs are dormant. What is the temp range that they can survive before being sat on?
It's pretty warm out here in the Arizona desert, so my guess it it's too hot?
The natural process is that a hen will lay a single egg every day for roughly 12 days or so, then once she feels she has a large enough clutch, she will start to incubate. So, theoretically speaking, if I were to just NOT collect eggs for a while and one of the hens decided to go broody, she could successfully hatch them, right?
Okay, well, what if I collected about a dozen eggs over a 5 day period (keeping them on my dresser in my room) and then just put them all back out into a nest box? If it took 4 days for a hen to go broody on them, could they still hatch?
I'm guessing the air temperature plays a major roll in viability while the eggs are dormant. What is the temp range that they can survive before being sat on?
It's pretty warm out here in the Arizona desert, so my guess it it's too hot?