Hi, so I thought this was all feeling a bit less stressful with a total of 2 broody hatches under my belt in the last 6 weeks. Then Mabel my young (just 7 months now) Light Sussex went broody bless her. I let her sit a week just to really make sure before I bought 12 eggs for her (which in hindsight may have been a bit ambitious). She happily accepted and sat on the eggs but there was a couple of times early on where I went down and she hadn't tucked them up under her properly (I'm guessing inexperience) so I had to do it for her. I then found a broken one (with a tiny BCM chick in it 
) I think she just accidently broke it getting back on the nest - she is a big bird in a bit of a silly spot with not much space to manoeuvre. At that point I decided to take some away form her and put them in the incubator I borrowed from my neighbour. This seemed to work well and she was sitting so well I decided to try to put the eggs back under her (also prompted by me slipping and breaking yet another little BCM 
when turning - day 15 so it was quite big and still alive when it first happened). I then found some of them on the floor - I dont' know how long they had been there, it was about 3pm when I found them - could have been the morning or the evening before - I'm not sure they are alive and I'm waiting for the torch to charge so I can candle them. I took them off her again but realised that it was probably the basin she is in tipping over when she gets out, she is in an awkward spot (I tried for 4 or 5 days to move her to the coop early on but she was having none of it so I'm just working with her!) rather than her doing anything (it is too high sided for her to have 'thrown' them out). Any way the long and the short of it is that I now have 5 eggs in the incubator and 5 eggs under her (with the basin wedged enough that it should tip - I hope). I diligently re-read all the incubation pages last night in preparation for lockdown this evening. One of the articles I read said about bantams being a bit quicker to hatch - when I went to buy the eggs he had one cute little Bantam Pekin egg that I couldn't resist - it is literally half the size of some of the BCM eggs (the ones left!) and then the Vorwerks are in between, t is one of the eggs that are under the broody.So for my questions please as I'm a bit
- I'm wondering if I should swap out the bantam out for another bigger egg and keep the little one in the incubator so if it does hatch a day or 2 before say the BCMs then Mabel isn't having to worry about a tiny little chick (and possibly squashing it while worry about the others hatching). What would you do?
- There is part of me that wonders if I should just trust in nature and give her the whole lot back now I've sorted out the basin to hopefully not move. Do you think I'm doing the right thing splitting the eggs and putting the incubator chicks under her once they are hatched or would you just put them back?
- An incubator newbie question. My day 18 is this evening. Should I start increasing hte humidity and working out how to keep it up during the day today or is that too early and I should wait until tomorrow?
and just put it straight under her this morning - I am so pleased I put my hand under her all the time when broody - it has made her totally trust me. I have also moved her and all the chicks into a little coop and out of the stupid TV nesting box that she was in 
