NysiaAnera
Songster
With the poop in the nest again, and the way our Australorp has been acting, I figured the rest of the eggs were already gone, and she had given up on them. So today I was prepared to remove the remaining eggs. I went to check on her, and the first thing I saw was one of the chicks laying outside the nest, obviously not living. So I removed the poor thing. Then momma took the remaining 4 chicks out to eat while I was right there, again. So I reached into the nest, and instead of trying to bite me, she just looked at me and went about her business. So I removed the eggs, they were all cold. We will be opening them up today to see where they all were in development. So, out of 12 eggs that were placed under her, one broke right off, one was not fertilized, 10 developed, 5 hatched, 4 chicks lived.
So far, our success rate has not been too good! Our fist momma ended up abandoning her nest, only because she went outside and the babies could not get back into the hen house. Oops! We fixed that immediately. She has successfully raised 3, but would have had 8.
Our second one is the Australorp, and quite frankly, I am surprised 5 of them even hatched, let alone with 4 being healthy. I almost disposed of them when I discovered the first poopy nest incident, because the eggs were not just covered, but it was caked on. One had a clump I could not get off and would have been the first to be tossed. Turned out that that was one of the first two to hatch, and the chick is healthy and active. So far she is being a better momma to the chicks than I was actually expecting.
Here's hoping for better success moving forward.
So far, our success rate has not been too good! Our fist momma ended up abandoning her nest, only because she went outside and the babies could not get back into the hen house. Oops! We fixed that immediately. She has successfully raised 3, but would have had 8.
Our second one is the Australorp, and quite frankly, I am surprised 5 of them even hatched, let alone with 4 being healthy. I almost disposed of them when I discovered the first poopy nest incident, because the eggs were not just covered, but it was caked on. One had a clump I could not get off and would have been the first to be tossed. Turned out that that was one of the first two to hatch, and the chick is healthy and active. So far she is being a better momma to the chicks than I was actually expecting.
Here's hoping for better success moving forward.
