First babies under broody, please help!

[Bec]

I put some eggs under my broody last night. Some were older than 3 days old, so today I got 2 fresh eggs and switched them out with the older ones. Of course, out of curiosity, I brought the 2 I had switched out in and cracked them open. Of course they looked like a normal yolk BUT where the white dot or disc would be kind of opened up and the yolk spilled out. Does this mean they were starting to develop?

I have looked up the pictures, but haven't found any that are that early! Now the guilt is kicking in and I wonder if I ruined them for no reason just because they were older than the fresh ones

 

[Bec]

Anyone? I need to know if I can continue feeling guilty or not ...lol

 

[Southernbelle]

Don't beat yourself up over it! They don't really start to develop until they've been incubated 24 hours.

I had to trash some eggs that were incubated about 3 days because my broody switched nests and allowed the first eggs to freeze.

I opted not to open them and see if there was any development. I put my girl in a seperate pen with ONE nest box and gave her more eggs, she's been doing fine since.

I think the incubation "rules" have a lot of wiggle room. I've hatched eggs that have set out for 2 weeks at room temp, I've hatched refridgerated eggs, I've hatched dirty eggs and eggs that have been washed. I still had good hatch rates. I'm one of those "lets try this and see how it goes" sort of person. The 3-day old eggs would probably have developed fine, but just go from here and don't look back.

 

[Bec]

Thank You so much! My first thought was to leave them all under her, but then I noticed that with 4, some were peaking out from under her, so I thought 6 would be too many.

I was really hoping that nothing had happened yet..that would have been sad!

 

[Southernbelle]

I'm with you. My broodies are all Silkies, so they're small and I also worry about them covering all their eggs in this cold. I've read they can handle up to 6 standard-size eggs, but this time of year, I give them no more than 4.

I think I had another girl go broody in the last 2 days and I'm about to give her some mutt eggs. All my chickens are purebred, but all mixed together in 2 big pens, so all the eggs are mutts. I'll be glad when the nice weather comes and I can buy some hatching eggs instead of hatching mutts left and right!

What breed is your broody and what is she sitting on?

 

[Bec]

I am the same way! All of mine are pure bred except the EE's of course because they are a mix anyway.
She is a Delaware Blue hen and is sitting on blue hen eggs, but I am not sure how many times the cochin has bred the Delaware Blues. So i might have all pures or Blue hen x partridge cochin! Either way they will be cuties!

I am going to be separating the Delaware Blue Hens from the rest of the flock so that i can have purebreds only when it comes to their eggies!