Gussie still has 4 un-pipped eggs beneath her and the one chick hatched between Friday and Saturday. Should I hang on a couple more days, or should I open up the crate now and let Gussie and chickie roam the coop? Gussie is still sitting on the eggs, but there isn't a lot of room for her to move about in the crate, so it is hard to tell whether she is done, but has nowhere to go, or still holding out hope on the other four? Also, the hens all jump up into the henhouse, but I guess I should set something up for the little one to be able to climb up and down.
HI, I do not have a lot of experience with this..but my hen gave up setting on her own....... I had left her woth her eggs for several days..not sure how many.............she had two chicks fou days apart. Good Luck
We have had this happen a few times. I don't let it go past four days. I'd take them out and pitch them. Wouldn't want one of those to blow up...Ewww! Let gussie raise her only youngin'. They'll be fine. Also, Our hens have to jump up about 8 inches from the floor to go out the pop door and when we have a broody hatch some chicks I just let nature run it's course and those chicks should be ready to jump out on their own in no time. That's all under the asumption that you have a feeder and waterer inside of the coop.
Quote:So, should I just open up the door and let Gussie and chickie have free access to the rest of the coop (and of course, this means my other two hens would have access to Gussie and chickie)? I would have found this so much less stressful if more than one egg had hatched. Maybe....
If Day 21 was friday or saturday like you said, now is probably about the time to give up on the others and let her take the chickies for a walk. If I were you, I'd snatch the remaining eggs and crack them open to find out what went wrong, but I am OCD and not squeamish at all. You can check if it's just yolk and whites whether or not it was ever fertile (there's a guide on here showing which is which), or if the chick was developing, you can judge at about what stage it died, which could give you an idea of WHY it died.
Quote:Not sure I could manage that at this point. I'm not particularly squeamish, but having had a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotic drops I was given for my scratched cornea and loss of vision and still feeling a bit sick from it all, I think I will pass on doing anything that might turn my queasy stomach over to the dark side.
Quote:So, should I just open up the door and let Gussie and chickie have free access to the rest of the coop (and of course, this means my other two hens would have access to Gussie and chickie)? I would have found this so much less stressful if more than one egg had hatched. Maybe.... It should be fine but...... it seems that all flocks seem to host a wide veriety behaviors. I would (if were me...only my opinion) let them out and watch closely to see what happens. If Gussie does her job correctly, she will protect that little chicky from the others if they try to harm baby. If she does not, return them to the broody box and let little baby mature a little more. So far in my experience I have not had any momma hens to allow any harm to come to their baby but I have heard of hens that are not so good at motherhood. If the momma doesn't protect and stay with the chick return them to the broody box immediatly. I always deal with every situation in our flock on a careful case by case basis as every chicken just like us humans have their own personality. Good luck and I hope this was some help.
Gussie didn't do so well on the mama department. Chickie was yelling for her and the other hens were too interested, but Gussie felt the need to stretch her legs, scratch at the ground and have a little dust bath. I didn't blame her too much - stuck in the broody box for a week. I stuck around and ran interference between chickie and the other hens. Gussie did get concerned and come back - baby had gone into the broody box, but Gussie couldn't figure out how to get to her. I finally got her and put her in and shut them up. I am going to let them out again after I finish work. Gosh, new chickies can be loud! Should I put the layer pellets away and just fill both the feeders with starter crumbles and leave lots of oystershell available? I really hope this little chickie is a girl because we can't have boys and I don't know how we are going to give up our first and only baby. Thank you all for your support through this. I put the dud eggs into an egg carton, packed in a grocery bag and into my garbage can. I sure hope no binners decide to take them home or they are in for a nasty surprise
What I recommend is to give both momma and baby the starter crumble. We have done this to get our momma back to weight since she has been sitting for 21 days with little food and water. This, however, is my opinion and I am sure there is no correct answer, I would just do what you think is right for your birds. As for loud chickies, yep they are loud especially if unhappy. Welcome to the wonderful world of baby chicks!