HELP! Broody has stolen an extra 9 eggs 😩

[Nicky S]

Sorry, I can't tell in the photos.

If the hen is having trouble keeping all the eggs under her, you could take away the early/infertile eggs, and leave the rest until your incubator arrives. Then once you have the incubator there and tested, you can leave the late ones with the hen, and put the mid ones in the incubator.


I eventually learned to gently lift each wing before lifting a hen off the nest

Thank you - yes the pics are awful . We’ll try again tomorrow and see if I can do a better job, at least with what we think are late ones so we have an idea. She’s really flattened out and seems to be managing ok, and my son put the late ones in the middle so they’d stay warmest, but I don’t know if she’ll rearrange much. If any hatch I think we’ll need to relocate her as the coop is a raised Eglu and I don’t think the babies will manage the ladder? We do have a brooder if things go wrong as we raised our current girls from a few days old.

 

[NatJ]

She’s really flattened out and seems to be managing ok

That sounds good!

If any hatch I think we’ll need to relocate her as the coop is a raised Eglu and I don’t think the babies will manage the ladder?

If you can put food & water in the Eglu with her, she and the chicks might be fine there for the first few days.

I'm not sure about chicks and ladders-- sometimes chicks do really surprising things, and sometimes they stand there and peep helplessly, or run the wrong way.

If you move a broody hen (sitting on eggs), she will often go back to the old nest, leaving the eggs to get cold. (Or she may pace back and forth in a new pen, trying to get back to the old one, and still let the eggs get cold.)

But if you move a hen after the chicks hatch, she is more likely to stay with the chicks, so moving her after they hatch sounds like a good idea. (I think the difference is that chicks peep to remind her they need attention, while eggs just sit there quietly and chill.)

We do have a brooder if things go wrong as we raised our current girls from a few days old.

That sounds like a good backup plan!

 

[Nicky S]

That sounds good!


If you can put food & water in the Eglu with her, she and the chicks might be fine there for the first few days.

I'm not sure about chicks and ladders-- sometimes chicks do really surprising things, and sometimes they stand there and peep helplessly, or run the wrong way.

If you move a broody hen (sitting on eggs), she will often go back to the old nest, leaving the eggs to get cold. (Or she may pace back and forth in a new pen, trying to get back to the old one, and still let the eggs get cold.)

But if you move a hen after the chicks hatch, she is more likely to stay with the chicks, so moving her after they hatch sounds like a good idea. (I think the difference is that chicks peep to remind her they need attention, while eggs just sit there quietly and chill.)


That sounds like a good backup plan!

Oh yes, that’s exactly what happened when we tried to relocate her - when she got off the nest she flew up onto a shelf and tried desperately to go back to the coop, so we put her and the eggs back (though she kicked that first lot out after a few days). I managed to get a better photo of one of the eggs today - let me know what you think! I am interpreting the light glowing area as the air sac and the darker area as a developing chick, but I honestly have no clue. Thanks again!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Still impossible to tell. Its too bright in the coop for the candling to work.

 

[NatJ]

I am interpreting the light glowing area as the air sac and the darker area as a developing chick, but I honestly have no clue.

Yes, the light area is air sac. It gets bigger over time, whether the egg develops or not.
The dark area is everything else-- white, yolk, and (maybe) chick.

Try candling the egg somewhere very dark (like inside a windowless room, with the lights off and the door closed.)

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ion-through-incubation-of-chicken-eggs.47879/
^Here's an article with a lot of photos of eggs being candled.

They are labeled by how many days of development.
At first, there is nothing to be seen in the egg (except the yolk, which looks like a big dark shadowy thing).
But then as they develop, you start to see veins, and one stage looks rather like a big spider sitting in there, and then the embryo gets bigger (etc, etc)

If you look at those pictures, and try candling your eggs in a very dark place, you might be able to tell better what you are seeing. For me, it's usually clearer when I look at the egg in person, and less clear if I try to take photos-- so you might be able to see more details in person than what we can see in photos you take.

 

[Nicky S]

Still impossible to tell. Its too bright in the coop for the candling to work.

Oh dear! Ok well we’ll try again this afternoon in that case Thank you!

 

[Nicky S]

Yes, the light area is air sac. It gets bigger over time, whether the egg develops or not.
The dark area is everything else-- white, yolk, and (maybe) chick.

Try candling the egg somewhere very dark (like inside a windowless room, with the lights off and the door closed.)

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ion-through-incubation-of-chicken-eggs.47879/
^Here's an article with a lot of photos of eggs being candled.

They are labeled by how many days of development.
At first, there is nothing to be seen in the egg (except the yolk, which looks like a big dark shadowy thing).
But then as they develop, you start to see veins, and one stage looks rather like a big spider sitting in there, and then the embryo gets bigger (etc, etc)

If you look at those pictures, and try candling your eggs in a very dark place, you might be able to tell better what you are seeing. For me, it's usually clearer when I look at the egg in person, and less clear if I try to take photos-- so you might be able to see more details in person than what we can see in photos you take.

Oh ok, thanks so much! We’ll try again later today and see if we can see any better .

 

[Nicky S]

Oh ok, thanks so much! We’ll try again later today and see if we can see any better .

Here goes - we went into the basement where it was very dark. I honestly can’t make much out - hoping a more experienced eye can! These are all the same egg as this morning’s with the big air sac.

 

[NatJ]

@Kiki @LadiesAndJane
Can you tell if that egg has a developing embryo or not?
(No idea what day of incubation, because the hen was adding eggs for a while before OP realized and marked them.)


@Nicky S
I can see something in it-- I'm just not sure if it's a chick or a yolk. Do you see any skinny veins reaching out from the dark spot into the rest of the egg?

I'm not very good at candling, but I've found it helpful to compare several different eggs (including at least one that has never been incubated-- I just swipe one from the fridge for that.) After you see one with obvious veins, it's easier to recognize them in other eggs. And candling one that you know was never incubated gives a good example of an egg with no development.

 

[Kiki]

@Kiki @LadiesAndJane
Can you tell if that egg has a developing embryo or not?
(No idea what day of incubation, because the hen was adding eggs for a while before OP realized and marked them.)


@Nicky S
I can see something in it-- I'm just not sure if it's a chick or a yolk. Do you see any skinny veins reaching out from the dark spot into the rest of the egg?

I'm not very good at candling, but I've found it helpful to compare several different eggs (including at least one that has never been incubated-- I just swipe one from the fridge for that.) After you see one with obvious veins, it's easier to recognize them in other eggs. And candling one that you know was never incubated gives a good example of an egg with no development.

No I cannot tell at this time.

I would recommend shining the light not on the side of the egg but directly on the fat end of the egg to look for veins.