I am so lost. This is the first year I have a rooster - so first year with Broody hens. I know how to care for baby chicks and have hatched my own but never had a hen hatch them. What do I do?
Here's the slight dilemma. I have no idea how many she is sitting on since two of my hens kept steeling everyone elses eggs as they were laid & the kept switching. I honestly did not think they would hatch since they kept fighting over them.
One is pipping (YEAH), and 2 still look to be a few days to a week away. Can't tell on the others since it is hard to tell which egg you have already candled when she is sitting on them and the rooster is giving me an evil stink eye!
Do I take it out when this little one hatches? Will she still sit on the others if one hatched and the others don't? Are the other chickens going to pick on them? What about food? We feed our chicks medicated. Which is bad for momma but the momma food is bad for babies, how the heck do you segregate that?
Oh gosh am I rambling I feel like I am hatching them in an incubator, nervouse momma all over again!
Here's the slight dilemma. I have no idea how many she is sitting on since two of my hens kept steeling everyone elses eggs as they were laid & the kept switching. I honestly did not think they would hatch since they kept fighting over them.
One is pipping (YEAH), and 2 still look to be a few days to a week away. Can't tell on the others since it is hard to tell which egg you have already candled when she is sitting on them and the rooster is giving me an evil stink eye!
Do I take it out when this little one hatches? Will she still sit on the others if one hatched and the others don't? Are the other chickens going to pick on them? What about food? We feed our chicks medicated. Which is bad for momma but the momma food is bad for babies, how the heck do you segregate that?
Oh gosh am I rambling I feel like I am hatching them in an incubator, nervouse momma all over again!