Help on eggs with broody hen

[Meathead3306]

I was gone hunting for a week and when I returned home I found 1 of the hens being broody. Today I caught her out of her nest so I tried to candle the eggs to see if there was any bad. They were all fertilized so I marked them and left them be.

I read that you don't want eggs to be more than 3 days apart. The problem is I was gone and she has 14 eggs under her. I only have 4 hens and 1 rooster and they lay 2-4 eggs a day. So I know that they're must be a big gap in age of the eggs.

How do I tell the difference? Should I take out the eggs that are not as old once I can tell. There was 3 eggs that were darker and full and most the others looked possibly a week old, With just the black spot.

What should I do? I'm guessing maybe 5 will hatch within 3 days of each other but the rest might need more time. This is all a guess as I'm new to this and can't tell by candleing the age of each egg.

 

[CluckerFamily]

When I let my broody hatch eggs, I left it all up to her. The only thing I helped with was putting her in her own area within the coop.
She did a great job of not sitting on the eggs until she had all the eggs she wanted. When chicks hatched, she also did a great job at waiting until she knew nothing else would hatch before leaving the nest.
I let mother nature surprise me with hatchings and let the broody take care of things.

 

[Meathead3306]

Glad to here that! That was my plan because I don't know what else to do. My plymouth hen is going broody too but has not stayed all day on a nest. Today the plymouth seems to want to stay on her one egg from last night. So maybe if she stays broody I can sneak in eggs from the other hen if she doesn't sit to hatch all of them.