Hatching eggs with broody hen different hatching weeks

[levoll88]

Hi everyone.
I have a broody hen. While waiting for eggs for her in the post i let her sit on some eggs i tought would be empty because my rooster is old and lazy. 6 days later the eggs arrived and i candled the old eggs just for fun. Turns out my rooster actualy managed to do his job when i didnt need him to but there was just life in one egg. I let my broody sit on that egg and put the new eggs under her. I have now seen that there is life in some of the new eggs also. What will happen when the first chick will hatch 6 days before the rest..? Should i take that chick from her and wait and try to put him back after the others hatch...? I dont feel good about taking just one chick because it will have to be alone then. Or do I wait and put the other eggs in the incubator if she quits on them? Any advice? Im really worried about the whole thing, and bought the incubator this week to have as a back-up And sorry for my english, i am from Norway

 

[Josip]

Well , six day is a lot.. I think when first chick hatch she will sit maybe few more days but not that long..

 

[Josip]

For me if you have option with incubator , you should leave first chick with hen and rest hatch in incubator.. then you should try to connect chick's with hen and good luck!!

 

[levoll88]

For me if you have option with incubator , you should leave first chick with hen and rest hatch in incubator.. then you should try to connect chick's with hen and good luck!!

Thx should I wait until she leaves the eggs on her own, or would you put the other eggs in the incubator right after the first chick is hatched?

 

[Josip]

Thx should I wait until she leaves the eggs on her own, or would you put the other eggs in the incubator right after the first chick is hatched?

I would not wait untill she leaves it because you can't look at her 24 hours a day so my opinion is when first chick hatch take others to incubator ..

 

[levoll88]

Update. The first chick hatched a couple of days ago. I left one egg with the broody and the chick and brought the other two eggs in to the incubator. The broody kept sitting on the egg until today, then she was of the nest with her chick and the egg was cold. Its day 18 so I dont know if the egg can survive beeing cold at this stage? She was still on the nest 2 hours before i found the cold egg. Its in the incubator now, is there hope for it hatching?

 

[Rachnicko]

I would say there is hope, and just leave it in the incubator.

I had a similar situation with the broody hen - and did the same as you by buying eggs, but giving 2 of our own to the broody while we waited for the post. We had the first 2 chicks hatch 5 days before the others, but as there were 2 of them, we brought them inside and brooded them with a heat plate, while the broody hen sat on the rest.
It turned out that only 1 of the remaining 6 eggs hatched, so we had to integrate the 2 early hatchers back with the hen and 1 chick. Turned out I didn’t need to worry and the hen took to it quite well. We just supervised as we integrated them, and checked them every few hours.

Personally I would try to avoid staggered hatch dates if I did it again, but I was new to it, and like you didn’t know if our own eggs would be viable. Good luck with the rest of your hatch! I hope this gives you hope.

 

[levoll88]

I would say there is hope, and just leave it in the incubator.

I had a similar situation with the broody hen - and did the same as you by buying eggs, but giving 2 of our own to the broody while we waited for the post. We had the first 2 chicks hatch 5 days before the others, but as there were 2 of them, we brought them inside and brooded them with a heat plate, while the broody hen sat on the rest.
It turned out that only 1 of the remaining 6 eggs hatched, so we had to integrate the 2 early hatchers back with the hen and 1 chick. Turned out I didn’t need to worry and the hen took to it quite well. We just supervised as we integrated them, and checked them every few hours.

Personally I would try to avoid staggered hatch dates if I did it again, but I was new to it, and like you didn’t know if our own eggs would be viable. Good luck with the rest of your hatch! I hope this gives you hope.

Thank you, this gave me hope definatly avioding staggered baches from now, this is too stressfull

Today the frist chicken in the incubator hatched. I cant see any wholes in the other two eggs yet, and now I am so nervous that the chick will be alone. The broodys chick is 5 days old now, is there any point trying to adopt the new chick to the hen? Or is she now so attached to her chick that she will not accept new ones?

 

[Rachnicko]

I know what you mean about the stress!

Is it day 21 for the eggs in the incubator? I would give it some time and try not to stress too much. I have read that eggs can hatch as late as day 24, although if one has started hatching, that sounds unlikely to me.

We managed to integrate 2 chicks that the broody hadn’t seen for 4 days - so ours are similar age difference. I think it depends what your broody is like. It’s worth trying to integrate and see how she takes to the new chick (or chicks hopefully). Our broody initially looked like she was pecking the chicks, but she was actually trying to get them to go underneath her.

I hope it all goes well! Let us know...