So in about January I decided that I wanted chickens. And not only did I want chicks I wanted to get eggs and have my silkie, Runt, my siblings named her and it stuck, hatch them. She’ll go broody and I think they were happy when I just let them sit. I went to the hatchery by my house and got 2 polish crested, 1 buff orpington, and 2 silkies (1 black, 1 white). Well when I got home my other silkie, charity, was sitting in her nest looking at me like ‘did you get any babies for me? I want to be a mama too’ so I went back to the hatchery and got 1 blue Cochin, 1 white cochin, 2 araucanas, and a blue polish. They were both so happy sitting on those eggs all day but they refused to get food and water by themselves so every day I had to take them out and make them eat. On about day 10 we candled the eggs and the blue polish had no development
while the others had very obvious veins and a little chick inside.
Finally hatch day came.
As soon as I got home from school I ran outside and sure enough there was one eggshell that runt had pushed out from her and a little fluffy chick peeping. Runt even lifted her wing for me to see my little blue Cochin.
I’m sure I sat out there for about 3 hours just listening and 2 more of runts babies hatched and 1 of charity’s.
The next morning I went outside and the white Cochin that was trying to hatch had been pushed out and was cold as ice.
It was about 30 degrees outside. Well I put it in the pile of eggshells and my little runt stretched and nuzzled that egg under her. Even though I knew that it was dead I let her because I didn’t want to risk the other eggs dying so I could take it back out from her.
When I got home I ran outside and all the eggs had hatched and when I lifted runt up to get the white Cochin egg she was breathing and trying to hatch!!!
So very quickly I put her down and went inside. That night when I came out she had died
. After hatching for about 10 hours she was dead. I still don’t know why but if anyone knows why I would love to know. She had like a big red thing on her butt.
But still out of 10 hatchery eggs 8 hatched and are still alive!
I think that the best thing about having a hen raise my chicks is that all I had to do was make sure they had food and water. I read a lot about why you shouldn’t have 2 broodies in the same coop because they will steal and bully each other’s chicks. I never had this problem. After the chicks hatched charity and runt shared the same box and shared the chicks.
I don’t even remember who sat on who. But I love my little babies. Sorry I don’t have any pictures.
Finally hatch day came.
The next morning I went outside and the white Cochin that was trying to hatch had been pushed out and was cold as ice.
When I got home I ran outside and all the eggs had hatched and when I lifted runt up to get the white Cochin egg she was breathing and trying to hatch!!!
I think that the best thing about having a hen raise my chicks is that all I had to do was make sure they had food and water. I read a lot about why you shouldn’t have 2 broodies in the same coop because they will steal and bully each other’s chicks. I never had this problem. After the chicks hatched charity and runt shared the same box and shared the chicks.
