First egg!!! now what....

[bobzant]

The night before last my bantam cochin laid her first egg, and as i was outside yesterday i noticed that it sounded like the henhouse fell in,so i peeked in the nest box and noticed she had laid ANOTHER one. she hasnt paid much attention to the two in there, and im new to this whole egg laying thing, do cochins even go broody? will she lay several and then sit, or will she even sit at all? do i need to get an incubator? help plz!!

 

[NonnasBabies]

They do go broody but they do it when they want to not when you want them to!!

I'd get an incubator!!

 

[Gypsy07]

You're best not to incubate any of her eggs until she's been laying for a while. Pullets take a while to settle into a regular laying pattern and until this one does you'll probably get tiny eggs with no yolk, huge double yolkers, inconsistent shell thicknesses and various funny shaped eggs, none of which will incubate and/or hatch very well. Once she's laying steadily, maybe in a month or two, you'll be good to go.

She might well go broody, I think Cochins are quite a broody breed. But if you want to hatch at specific times, get an incubator. That way you can do it to your schedule and not to hers. You also get to hand rear the chicks, which will hopefully make them tamer as adult birds. That can be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you want from your birds. Sometimes I get a bit annoyed at being mobbed and followed around by a dozen birds every time I step out of my door!