Help! Broody hen stopped sitting on eggs

[Cakela]

The chicks take up the entire shell... but I wasn't really keep track of the days. She stopped sitting on them and has been roaming around all day and part of last night I assume. The eggs are ice cold but I don''t want to throw them away if they could still be alive... but I have no idea how to see if they are living or not. All I can see inside the shell is the air sac.

 

[honfor500]

I had this same problem when my broody hen got pushed off the nest by one of my non broody hens that was trying to lay an egg. What I did was separate my broody hen and the eggs into there own nesting box and block the door so she cant get out and no other hens can get in. Like you said I had an egg that was ice cold and the whole egg was dark what i did was hold a flashlight against the egg to quickly warm it up with the bulb and I rolled the egg around on the flashlight stopping to candle it when all of a sudden I noticed movement it started movin more and more and i put it back with the hen she will set on the eggs if she has no choice.

 

[Cakela]

She was separated. I did a small eggtopsy and they were all fully developed little dead chicks, 11 of them. I don't know why she didn't finish setting on them. She has been kinda iffy about sitting on them for the past two days, so I took them today when she refused to sit on them.

 

[Evelle]

i have a excalaber (i always for get the real name) leghorn that always went broody she would sit on the eggs until i think 3 days before hatching my guess is she is new at this the movement and peeping and pecking might have scared her and left.. she incubate them till the end then stop right before they should hatch URRRGGG

still frustrates me.
what really urked me was she leave that nest and sit in one with out eggs

sorry about your luck

 

[debbruther]

My hen sat on 10 eggs for two weeks then yesterday moved over and sat on 2. This morning her eggs where ice cold but she went back over and sat on them. Any suggestions? Any chance they are still alive in there?

 

[redhen689]

Sometimes they still hatch, sometimes they don't.

 

[donrae]

My hen sat on 10 eggs for two weeks then yesterday moved over and sat on 2. This morning her eggs where ice cold but she went back over and sat on them. Any suggestions? Any chance they are still alive in there?

Sad thing is, there's not much you can do either way. If she's back to the original nest, great. Do you think she would tolerate being moved somewhere without other nests? although I'm not sure I'd mess with her if she's already come off the nest. Pretty much all you can do is wait it out, I'd let her go ahead and set. You can candle eggs for movement, etc, but I'd still wait a while before tossing any of them.

Helplessness is the hardest part of hatching chicks!

 

[islandbayou]

I had two hens broody at the same time. I moved them to a nesting pin. My frizzle hatched one egg out, but my silkie stopped sitting on her egg. The frizzle wouldn't sit on the silkies egg. That egg was cold and died, I opened it up to find a fully developed chick....we were sad but plan on buying a brinsea mini advance incubator and hatch out babies.

 

[celestesolis70]

My hen has ten eggs she hatched four over the last five days and now is walking around the yard with the chick and not sitting on the nest? One egg has started hatching and I hear peeping but the others haven't ? they are cold and I have no incubator? will the hatch and should I help and open the rest? help please?

 

[KHoward]

Every day my broody gets kicked out of the next so my EE can lay in it. The EE sets for a bit while the broody goes for food and water. Then the broody comes back and the EE moves on. However, today (day 24 of 28, she is sitting on duck eggs), the broody got kicked out and moved to another nest with eggs and stayed there all day. So the eggs got cold, my guess is down to 65. I took them and moved them into the bator. I don't have much hope, but we'll ride it out.

**UPDATE: It's been 10 hours since I put the 8 eggs in the incubator and this morning I saw definite bill movement in 7 of 8 - which seems against all odds. I have to remind myself that though hens sit on eggs all day, they DO get up for food and water at least twice. So eggs naturally cool down twice a day and they are fine at hatch. Now, that is not to say that the amount of time they were unattended yesterday was good either, they were cool to the touch.

Also, it is quite possible that the hen was just getting tired of sitting on the eggs, since they are duck eggs and they take longer (but that is my human brain rationalizing why she got up. Who knows, maybe she just wanted to cross the road...)

The moral of the story is to give it a try in the bator, even if they have been abandoned - it could still work out.

~K