Hatching Under a Broody Hen

[EggSighted4Life]

Just for informational purposes and to share my recent experience...

I recently hatched chicks. But about halfway through we lost power when I wasn't home. The eggs were 78 degrees when I found them. I had 5 out of 11 hatch (my worst hatch ever). 1 which I culled at day 3 because it wasn't eating and something happened during lock down that I first thought was an exploded egg because there was yolk looking stuff everywhere. Well, it turned out to be yolk from the hatched chick that I decided to put down. And could by then, see that it had what looked similar to pasty butt, only on it's naval from day 1. I didn't see the hatch. I don't know if other chicks helped it out or what happened. Real point of the story though is I had 2 born with deformities, which at first I thought were missing toes. Turns out they are badly curved. And I worked hard securing quality birds and ensuring nutrition is appropriate. So I was quite dismayed to think they are throwing hidden deformities. Turns out temperature fluctuation is a main cause and so with that issue, I'm actually relieved that it may in fact not be my stock. Hopefully your full load won't have issues but now you can know if you do find a bunch that temp fluctuating might be part of it. I wasn't able to detect these anomalies until they got their land legs and started trying to peck around and stuff. But at hatch they looked just as perfect as the rest.

Learning to mark the eggs under the broody NICE & CLEAR, and NOT pencil (because it got rubbed off and I accidentally collected the wrong egg) was one of my key lessons. As noted by you and others... hens like to sneak their eggs into the nest. So you may have some late hatching chicks.

Also I misread 1 candling and thought about putting it back since "something" was different. But moved forward and checked it as part of diagnosing fertility or hatch related issues. Next time I will go with my gut and put it back. I cracked it into the pan with all the other "blanks" that I was gonna feed out to the animals. Ugh! It was moving and had eyes that looked at me the whole time I was cooking those scrambled eggs! It was a terrible and valuable learning experience.

Very excited for you!

Your flock sounds interesting and beautiful.

 

[Arya28]

Just for informational purposes and to share my recent experience...

I recently hatched chicks. But about halfway through we lost power when I wasn't home. The eggs were 78 degrees when I found them. I had 5 out of 11 hatch (my worst hatch ever). 1 which I culled at day 3 because it wasn't eating and something happened during lock down that I first thought was an exploded egg because there was yolk looking stuff everywhere. Well, it turned out to be yolk from the hatched chick that I decided to put down. And could by then, see that it had what looked similar to pasty butt, only on it's naval from day 1. I didn't see the hatch. I don't know if other chicks helped it out or what happened. Real point of the story though is I had 2 born with deformities, which at first I thought were missing toes. Turns out they are badly curved. And I worked hard securing quality birds and ensuring nutrition is appropriate. So I was quite dismayed to think they are throwing hidden deformities. Turns out temperature fluctuation is a main cause and so with that issue, I'm actually relieved that it may in fact not be my stock. Hopefully your full load won't have issues but now you can know if you do find a bunch that temp fluctuating might be part of it. I wasn't able to detect these anomalies until they got their land legs and started trying to peck around and stuff. But at hatch they looked just as perfect as the rest.

Learning to mark the eggs under the broody NICE & CLEAR, and NOT pencil (because it got rubbed off and I accidentally collected the wrong egg) was one of my key lessons. As noted by you and others... hens like to sneak their eggs into the nest. So you may have some late hatching chicks.

Also I misread 1 candling and thought about putting it back since "something" was different. But moved forward and checked it as part of diagnosing fertility or hatch related issues. Next time I will go with my gut and put it back. I cracked it into the pan with all the other "blanks" that I was gonna feed out to the animals. Ugh! It was moving and had eyes that looked at me the whole time I was cooking those scrambled eggs! It was a terrible and valuable learning experience.

Very excited for you!

Your flock sounds interesting and beautiful.

Oh my god that’s terrible! I can’t even imagine...

Well what happened with our incubator hatch seems similar to what happened with yours. I have a thread somewhere on it.... we loaded our incubator with 30 eggs, and 5 hatched. It was our first ever incubation. Long story short, in the beginning our instruction manual told is to load the eggs with the pointy end UP, (which apparently is really bad). On day 9 we flipped them back the right way. Candling was great all the way through, our humidity stayed between 40 and 45 before lockdown (at 65 during lockdown), and our temp stayed at about 38.1 Celsius throughout. Then on day 21, one hatched. On day 22, one hatched. On day 23 one hatched, and on day 24 two hatched. That was it. On day 22 we had one pip in the wrong spot and die. So all of the 10 eggs that were left on day 24 (that we didn’t take out throughout the process) we decided we should open them and see if we could get them out. I know, there are a million reasons you’re not supposed to do this. But we did because of the one the pipped in the wrong spot, we thought it might be our only chance to save them. Well, they were all dead in the shell, most of them seemed like they just couldn’t get that air cell in the right spot. And, for educational purposes, we took pictures of each of them which wasn’t fun. But we learned. We think the temp must’ve just been a little too high for most of them. The 5 that did hatch are super healthy and doing great though! (We had one born with the yolk not being all the way absorbed... after a little assistance getting out of the shell, she had the yolk absorbed in a couple hours and is totally normal and healthy now!)

All of this happened in the beginning of November. And on day 22 (I think) of hatching, we discovered our broody Spitzhauben. We figured it might be another chance to get more chicks! And, what do you know, she’s brooding almost the same number we lost. So we have our fingers crossed and are hoping for a good hatch!

We are building a really big brooder in the garage. When we first talked about it, we wanted to leave them in the barn. But we think at least for the first couple weeks it might be better, just because there are SO many of them...

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Oh my god that’s terrible! I can’t even imagine...

Well what happened with our incubator hatch seems similar to what happened with yours. I have a thread somewhere on it.... we loaded our incubator with 30 eggs, and 5 hatched. It was our first ever incubation. Long story short, in the beginning our instruction manual told is to load the eggs with the pointy end UP, (which apparently is really bad). On day 9 we flipped them back the right way. Candling was great all the way through, our humidity stayed between 40 and 45 before lockdown (at 65 during lockdown), and our temp stayed at about 38.1 Celsius throughout. Then on day 21, one hatched. On day 22, one hatched. On day 23 one hatched, and on day 24 two hatched. That was it. On day 22 we had one pip in the wrong spot and die. So all of the 10 eggs that were left on day 24 (that we didn’t take out throughout the process) we decided we should open them and see if we could get them out. I know, there are a million reasons you’re not supposed to do this. But we did because of the one the pipped in the wrong spot, we thought it might be our only chance to save them. Well, they were all dead in the shell, most of them seemed like they just couldn’t get that air cell in the right spot. And, for educational purposes, we took pictures of each of them which wasn’t fun. But we learned. We think the temp must’ve just been a little too high for most of them. The 5 that did hatch are super healthy and doing great though! (We had one born with the yolk not being all the way absorbed... after a little assistance getting out of the shell, she had the yolk absorbed in a couple hours and is totally normal and healthy now!)

All of this happened in the beginning of November. And on day 22 (I think) of hatching, we discovered our broody Spitzhauben. We figured it might be another chance to get more chicks! And, what do you know, she’s brooding almost the same number we lost. So we have our fingers crossed and are hoping for a good hatch!

We are building a really big brooder in the garage. When we first talked about it, we wanted to leave them in the barn. But we think at least for the first couple weeks it might be better, just because there are SO many of them...

You are brave doing all that investigation.

Is your incubator still or circulated air? And were those eggs all set on the same day?

If you wanted to next time... you could adopt your incubator chicks to your broody by tucking them under her during the night. I like to do this so my broody's don't have to sit for as long. And have been successful every time so far, up to 6 days old. Usually let her sit at least 3 days before trying so I make sure she's good and broody. I even adopt feed store chicks to them if there is a breed I wanna try.

Since you might have eggs deposited that would hatch late for this hen... you could take those eggs and put in the incubator and tuck them under with the earlier hatching chicks once they are ready. If there's plenty of them mum may not notice the new strangers. There is a big difference in strength of first born and last born chicks if they are very far apart. In the case of a broody, spread out hatching could be a death sentence for either set, the early comers or the late arriving depending on what the hens instincts tell her to do. But hopefully you won't have too much issue.

Glad your first 5 are doing well!

 

[Ridgerunner]

As you said this is kind of an experiment so use it as a learning experience.

Other hens will continue to lay in a broody hen’s nest. Some broody hens will carry an egg from another nest back to theirs. Hard to imagine isn’t it, it is pretty rare, but they can do it. The next time you want a broody to hatch collect all the eggs you want her to hatch, mark them so you can tell which eggs belong, and start them all at the same time. I use a black Sharpie but others use other things to mark them. Then every day after the other hens have laid check under her and remove any eggs that don’t belong. If a hen has more eggs than she can cover she will rotate the eggs when she turns them. Some get pushed out, cool off, and die, then get moved back under her and another gets pushed out. You often do not get good hatches if she has too many eggs.

Eggs and hens come in different sizes. Some bantams may struggle to cover more than 4 regular sized eggs. Who knowns how many bantam eggs a full-sized hen can cover. I’ve had a full-sized hen hide a nest and come off with 18 chicks. I never found her nest so I don’t know how many eggs she started with but she could obviously cover at least 18 and probably laid them all herself. I’ve had a full-sized hen not be able to comfortably cover more than 10 eggs. There is no set number of eggs a hen can cover, too many variables.

I had one hen raise 15 chicks one time, last year I had one raise 16. These were partly chicks that hatched under her and partly incubator chicks. This was in warmer weather and they had no problems. The chicks grow pretty fast and in colder weather it may be a problem if they all cannot still get under her a few weeks after they hatch. I normally start 12 eggs but right now I have a fairly large broody that I put only 8 eggs because of the time of the year.

I don’t know how many of those eggs will hatch. It could be a lot or it may be very few. Hopefully you at least get some. You are going to have to be flexible. If she only hatches a few she should be able to keep them all warm and raise them. If she has a huge hatch you may need to put them in the brooder with her and some heat, especially with temperatures well below freezing. In the ideal conditions she would only have enough chicks that she could handle, but if she has too many you have to deal with that situation.

Next time you can manage this so it is less stressful for you. But this time, well good luck!

 

[sylviethecochin]

So how's it hatching?

 

[Arya28]

Ok, so it’s day 22. There don’t appear to be any pips yet. Really though, I’m not surprised that it’s a little later because it’s been cold outside, maybe that delayed them a little? Hens don’t always hatch on day 21, right?

Last night I went out to the barn to check on her... she was ok, but she was shivering. So I covered the box she was in partially with a sheet. It’s supposed to get even colder this week, and not wanting to chill the eggs while hatching, we made the decision to move her to the garage today. Also because there’s so many, every once in a while one or two sticks out part way- we thought with a little heat it might not kill them immediately when that happens.

So we have our HUGE brooder built! She’s in her original box inside there so she’s more comfortable. Our garage isn’t heated- but there is electricity. So we suspended a heat lamp from the ceiling above her, and it’s not too warm- probably about 40 degrees. But it’s enough that she stopped shivering. We figure if we can keep her from feeezing she will be more comfortable keeping the eggs warm.

So, if some that are in the middle pip, and the ones around the edges don’t, should we move those to the incubator? As of now, none of them have. But we are assuming the ones around the edges (because they stick out every now and again) will take longer. Should we leave them under her or move some to the incubator?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I personally wouldn't move the eggs to the incubator until after several have hatched... I think is what I would do anyways. I think I would let whatever hatch is going to take place happen naturally and have the incubator ready for any egg that don't hatch within 24 hours of the first chick, maybe. Ugh, decisions!

Stinks that your girl was shivering. Luckily she has you.

Is that heat lamp you put on her either red or non light emitting? If not, then I would consider getting one of that type. 40 degrees should be pretty good. And a good thick layer of nesting material.

Very often, I don't see any pipping. So I go to bed and wake up with several hatched. I would (probably) leave her alone and then lift her at the end of the day to see what's under there. She may be able to hear chirps that take place even after the internal pip. And the other eggs can here it too. They encourage each other that it's time to hatch.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That last post reminded me. I once killed a chick lifting a broody hen to see what chicks were under her. Sometimes the chicks crawl up under the hens wings, they are not always under her. I crushed a chick the way I lifted the hen. After that I don't lift a broody just to satisfy my curiosity. When I do lift a broody with chicks I am extremely careful.

 

[song of joy]

That last post reminded me. I once killed a chick lifting a broody hen to see what chicks were under her. Sometimes the chicks crawl up under the hens wings, they are not always under her. I crushed a chick the way I lifted the hen. After that I don't lift a broody just to satisfy my curiosity. When I do lift a broody with chicks I am extremely careful.

Very good advice. To get a count on chicks, I wait until she decides it's time to get off the nest.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Very good advice. To get a count on chicks, I wait until she decides it's time to get off the nest.

And count how many eggs are left.