So the eggs in the 'bator are on day 9 now, and I candled them all. They are from a pen with my sussex rooster, 6 sussex hens, and a campine hen. I set 21 of the sussex hens' eggs; 1 had a blood ring, and I am pretty completely certain the others are all clears. (Am leaving them in for now, just in *case* I'm wrong, but don't think so... I mean, the whole egg was glowing...) I set 5 of the campine hen's eggs: 4 developing and alive, and 1 with a blood ring that I took out and broke open and seemed to have quit maybe around days 3-5 or so. Now, I *know* the roo mates the heck out of the campine hen, she is his constant companion and quite barebacked... but I *have* seen him mate at least some of the sussex hens too, and several have enough missing feathers on their backs and heads that I assume he's mating them semi-regularly. Yet next to none of the sussex hens' eggs seem to be fertile. What would you suggest? I *could* remove the campine hen from the pen I suppose but then she'd have to live totally alone by herself, and would be terribly miserable. Dunno what to do... I don't want her miserable, but I *do* want sussex chicks (and don't particularly want sussex-campine mutts, in general, although it would be fun if these 4 hatched) All suggestions appreciated, Pat
Our Sussex have pretty fluffy bloomers, have you tried clipping the fluff back? You could maybe remove the hen for part of the day to try to get him to warm up to the other girls, or maybe divide the hens into two groups and rotate them through? I feel you pain, we have a pen of Buckeyes with the same deal. One roo four hens, and one hen is clearly not with the plan or not in play.
