first time broody question

[chicksurreal]

That doesn't look like any eggshell I've seen with a live hatch. I've only had 5 broody's hatch so far, but the eggshells have never had liquid like that in them. I hope someone with more experience can answer your question.

 

[Mr Beaks]

That doesn't look like any eggshell I've seen with a live hatch. I've only had 5 broody's hatch so far, but the eggshells have never had liquid like that in them. I hope someone with more experience can answer your question.

X2 on that! I have an egg eater somewhere in the bunch and that is usually what the shell looks like by the time I find it. Hopefully that is not the case

 

[Mr Beaks]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. My Lil Japanese bantam Is broody. She had 5 eggs under her at first and now she has 17! The other girls leave her alone all day and only go in to roost at night with the exception of Buffy the Orp. who I suspect is responsible for the increasing numbers. She is my 1st broody and I want to do things right. Should I be removing the extra eggs? Also, the eggs she's sitting on are mixed. The girls have been laying for only a month or so. We do have a rooster but the girls are young and the eggs small. I guess I'm just wondering if they're even fertile at this point. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated as I am "winging it." Lol Thank you in advance!

 

[chicksurreal]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. My Lil Japanese bantam Is broody. She had 5 eggs under her at first and now she has 17! The other girls leave her alone all day and only go in to roost at night with the exception of Buffy the Orp. who I suspect is responsible for the increasing numbers. She is my 1st broody and I want to do things right. Should I be removing the extra eggs? Also, the eggs she's sitting on are mixed. The girls have been laying for only a month or so. We do have a rooster but the girls are young and the eggs small. I guess I'm just wondering if they're even fertile at this point. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated as I am "winging it." Lol

Thank you in advance!

I've had broodys "steal" eggs. I now remove my broody girls from the general population because of the fact that my other girls will go in and lay daily where the broody girl is, usually with some struggle that could break existing eggs.

You don't want a staggered hatch because the broody will only sit on eggs for a few days after the first chick hatches. Usually about three days at most. If you have eggs sitting in there that are only half way through their incubation period or even close to hatch, she will leave them to take her hatched chicks out, leaving the others to die. If you're going to leave her in the nesting box where other girls will lay, mark the eggs you want her to hatch and remove any others daily. Chicken eggs take about 21 days to hatch, give or take a day or two. I always like to set eggs at the same time so they will hatch mostly on the same day (or close).

Do you see your rooster treading? Is he mounting the girls? If so, you probably have fertile eggs. How old is he? The younger roos (cockerels) usually take a bit of time to get the hang of it, but if he is a mature rooster, he's probably getting the job done. You can break a fresh egg and check to see if it's fertile. If it's fertile there will be a bullseye spot somewhere on the yolk. An egg that is not fertile will just have a small white spot to mark the hens DNA.

 

[Mr Beaks]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. My Lil Japanese bantam Is broody. She had 5 eggs under her at first and now she has 17! The other girls leave her alone all day and only go in to roost at night with the exception of Buffy the Orp. who I suspect is responsible for the increasing numbers. She is my 1st broody and I want to do things right. Should I be removing the extra eggs? Also, the eggs she's sitting on are mixed. The girls have been laying for only a month or so. We do have a rooster but the girls are young and the eggs small. I guess I'm just wondering if they're even fertile at this point. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated as I am "winging it." Lol Thank you in advance!

I've had broodys "steal" eggs. I now remove my broody girls from the general population because of the fact that my other girls will go in and lay daily where the broody girl is, usually with some struggle that could break existing eggs.

You don't want a staggered hatch because the broody will only sit on eggs for a few days after the first chick hatches. Usually about three days at most. If you have eggs sitting in there that are only half way through their incubation period or even close to hatch, she will leave them to take her hatched chicks out, leaving the others to die. If you're going to leave her in the nesting box where other girls will lay, mark the eggs you want her to hatch and remove any others daily. Chicken eggs take about 21 days to hatch, give or take a day or two. I always like to set eggs at the same time so they will hatch mostly on the same day (or close).

Do you see your rooster treading? Is he mounting the girls? If so, you probably have fertile eggs. How old is he? The younger roos (cockerels) usually take a bit of time to get the hang of it, but if he is a mature rooster, he's probably getting the job done. You can break a fresh egg and check to see if it's fertile. If it's fertile there will be a bullseye spot somewhere on the yolk. An egg that is not fertile will just have a small white spot to mark the hens DNA. 

Thank you so much for your response! I have taken your suggestion of marking the eggs and removing the extras. (Her eggs are surprisingly similar in color and size to my BO's. Is this normal?) I would prefer to have her in her own space but don't want to stress her out as we just moved them into a new coop 2 weeks ago. As for the rooster, He's definitely got the mounting thing down. Thank you for all your help! I will definitely be doing things differently next time around

 

[tiffvitorino]

Okay so I posted a month ago that I had a broody hen sitting on eggs a few bad ones where tossed out by her. She is STILL there on the 10 eggs left. So it's been about 40 days. I looked under her the eggs are still there and look normal. How long do I let this go on? It's obvious these eggs aren't fertile right? They would have hatched in 21 days or am I wrong? She is getting up to eat and drink I have her alone in a pen with one of my wounded roosters.

 

[chicksurreal]

Okay so I posted a month ago that I had a broody hen sitting on eggs a few bad ones where tossed out by her. She is STILL there on the 10 eggs left. So it's been about 40 days. I looked under her the eggs are still there and look normal. How long do I let this go on? It's obvious these eggs aren't fertile right? They would have hatched in 21 days or am I wrong? She is getting up to eat and drink I have her alone in a pen with one of my wounded roosters.

Yes, that's way too long. They are either not fertile or something went wrong during the time that they could have developed.

 

[Mr Beaks]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. My Lil Japanese bantam Is broody. She had 5 eggs under her at first and now she has 17! The other girls leave her alone all day and only go in to roost at night with the exception of Buffy the Orp. who I suspect is responsible for the increasing numbers. She is my 1st broody and I want to do things right. Should I be removing the extra eggs? Also, the eggs she's sitting on are mixed. The girls have been laying for only a month or so. We do have a rooster but the girls are young and the eggs small. I guess I'm just wondering if they're even fertile at this point. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated as I am "winging it." Lol Thank you in advance!

I've had broodys "steal" eggs. I now remove my broody girls from the general population because of the fact that my other girls will go in and lay daily where the broody girl is, usually with some struggle that could break existing eggs.

You don't want a staggered hatch because the broody will only sit on eggs for a few days after the first chick hatches. Usually about three days at most. If you have eggs sitting in there that are only half way through their incubation period or even close to hatch, she will leave them to take her hatched chicks out, leaving the others to die. If you're going to leave her in the nesting box where other girls will lay, mark the eggs you want her to hatch and remove any others daily. Chicken eggs take about 21 days to hatch, give or take a day or two. I always like to set eggs at the same time so they will hatch mostly on the same day (or close).

Do you see your rooster treading? Is he mounting the girls? If so, you probably have fertile eggs. How old is he? The younger roos (cockerels) usually take a bit of time to get the hang of it, but if he is a mature rooster, he's probably getting the job done. You can break a fresh egg and check to see if it's fertile. If it's fertile there will be a bullseye spot somewhere on the yolk. An egg that is not fertile will just have a small white spot to mark the hens DNA. 

Thank you so much for your response! I have taken your suggestion of marking the eggs and removing the extras. (Her eggs are surprisingly similar in color and size to my BO's. Is this normal?) I would prefer to have her in her own space but don't want to stress her out as we just moved them into a new coop 2 weeks ago. As for the rooster, He's definitely got the mounting thing down. Thank you for all your help! I will definitely be doing things differently next time around

*update*
After our last exchange I went out to check on things and found 3 cracked eggs. After some thought I decided to go ahead and move her to her own little coop. My worry was that she would reject the eggs but she took to it just fine. She seems more relaxed now and I saw she hatched one out last night! I will post pics as soon as I can!

 

[Mr Beaks]

She is taking good care of the 1st chick she hatched but she attacked the 2nd and 3rd one. She was quite aggressive with them and bloodied them up a bit. Is it normal for a 1st time broody to do this? The one in the bottom pic is an Orpington. The first two pictured are hers and are the ones she rejected. Both seem to be healthy and strong

 

[chicksurreal]

She is taking good care of the 1st chick she hatched but she attacked the 2nd and 3rd one. She was quite aggressive with them and bloodied them up a bit. Is it normal for a 1st time broody to do this? The one in the bottom pic is an Orpington. The first two pictured are hers and are the ones she rejected. Both seem to be healthy and strong

Sweet little babies!!!

So far this year I've had 7 girls go broody for their first time ( and three have been broody more than once this year) and have seen a huge difference in the the way they treat the chicks.

Most have been great, but I had one be homicidal and kill three of the chicks she hatched and I was only able to save the fourth one by being there and grabbing it as it hatched.

Another one hatched two chicks and literally pushed them out of the nest, thankfully I had another broody hatching at the same time and she took them in with the rest of hers.

It's very interesting to watch the differences in behavior. I just had a girl hatch four chicks today and she actually even helped one out of the egg, so far she's been fantastic.