Hatching eggs from mutt rooster and different hen breeds!

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TheWyandotteStripey

TheWyandotteStripey

In the Brooder
Jun 25, 2017
26
17
29
For starters I have one BLR Wyandotte, one Golden Comet, one New Hampshire Red, one Lakenvelder, two mysterious white hens, a Coco(IK that's not how you spell it.. :hmm) Maran, and a Light Brahma. Those were the hens, the roster is a beautiful mutt, I'll post a pic of him when I get the chance, whom is very docile and mellow and will attack a golden eagle to protect his hens and our one and a half month old CHICKS. :clap I was aiming for this thread to be about Stripey, my BLR Wyandotte hen, because she is sitting on........ Wait for it:wee......... NINETEEN EGGS! :eek:! And they are about a week along. Any advice for the newborn chicks? :D
 
Can she cover all 19 eggs or are some sticking out? If she can cover all of them, great. If not you should remove a few. I had a hen hide a nest and come out with 18 chicks so she could cover that many. I've had hens that could barely cover 10 eggs of the size she laid. If the hen cannot cover them all an egg gets pushed out, cools off, and dies. Then it gets moved back under her and another gets pushed out to die. You don't get good hatches if she can't cover them all.

If you need to remove a few you can either pick a few at random or at one week you can try candling the eggs. If the eggs are really dark it may be hard to see much but at one week you should be able to see veining. If you need help candling let us know.

Tell us a bit about your set-up. How big is everything and how much room do they have outside? Where is the broody hen, in the coop, hiding a nest, or do you have her isolated in a pen? Have you marked the eggs if she is not isolated? We do this all kinds of different ways so you will get a wide range of comments no matter how you are set up, but I'd like to know a bit about your set-up and how you are managing them before I comment too much.
 
She isn't in an isolated coop as of this moment and yes she can cover them all. I candled them when she was off of the nest at the one week mark. All of the eggs were fine except for one which was still a yolk and no progress was made. When hens incubate, we pull them inside during the last week of incubation so that ants don't harm the chicks. Ants on our farm have killed and eaten newborn chicks before and are extremely annoying and frustrating. Once the hen won't sit on the eggs/chicks and longer, we move them to the chick coop/coops where the chicks are raised by their mother. Once the chicks grow older and more independent, they either go to an empty coop to start their own flock or go to the laying coop or another rooster's coop.
Earlier I only mentioned one coop. In total we have around 100 different breeds and about half are pure bread. We have several coops and ' territory ' grounds for the roosters. We provide the room needed for the broody hens but we have only had one successful hatch. When hens get broody, we let them sit in their nest until the last week and the cycle goes around again. It's just a shame that almost none of the chicks hatch.
All of the coops are big to start with and the chickens are free ranged. The majority of the chickens were either from a hatchery or from a friend. All are sweet and have human contact and attention. Sick chickens are cared for in a special room in the house or barn. Our farm is about 10 flat acres with a couple trees. Most of our roosters have been sold but the first chicks that hatched have yet to be determined. They have a caring mother and are the ones about one and a half months old.
Complicated, sorry.
 

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