Hello!

Thank you for the welcome. Update. 6 little chicks hatched successfully! Watching closely to make sure they're safe. They are outside in the gated run with the mamas. We have an eggloo. So, it is a chicken tractor with steel run and a coop about 2 1/2 feet off the ground with a metal ladder. We put a wooden board behind the metal ladder so that chicks can climb up and down it. So far the chicks are doing good at hopping down with wings outstretched. Just teaching them how to hop up. We have 3 live eggs that were abandoned by the mamas for the days. We have a heating lamp and a styrofoam bottom of a cooler and try to surround that with carboard to make an incubator since we don't have one. The hens accept the eggs under them at night, but each day, they abandon them. So, during the day, we put them under the heating lamp, then when it gets dark we slip them under a mama hen. Is this a good way to go about this? Should I be doing something else? Today is day 23. I feel life/a small vibration in these three eggs.
Good luck and let us know how the hatch goes.
 
We have 3 live eggs that were abandoned by the mamas
Are you sure they are still viable? The hens usually leave eggs behind if they haven't hatched within 48 hours or so of the first chick hatching. Did you have a staggered set on the eggs? Even if these eggs do hatch under the mothers, the chicks will be so far behind in development from the other chicks they will have a very difficult time keeping up with the mothers. You may have to raise them yourself.
 
Are you sure they are still viable? The hens usually leave eggs behind if they haven't hatched within 48 hours or so of the first chick hatching. Did you have a staggered set on the eggs? Even if these eggs do hatch under the mothers, the chicks will be so far behind in development from the other chicks they will have a very difficult time keeping up with the mothers. You may have to raise them yourself.
I think they are. I feel like it. I tried candling and saw lots of veins and there was an air sack and then the bottom of the egg was all dark. One of them had a beak sticking up from the darkness in the air sack. I am not sure what to look for exactly while candling since it is my first time.
 
Welcome to BYC!!
Thank you for the links. That is sad you had to leave your chickens. I am an artist. I'd love to post some of the art. I do Lifedrawings and am trying to figure out the best way to sell them. I also have 3D modeling digital art. I have some paintings. I am eclectic with different styles. I have a Bachelor's in media art, so some short films too.
 

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