Help!!!

[jakmallex]

My broody hen hatched most of her eggs but now she won't sit on the rest!!! One baby is wet and cold but alive, it's under a heat lamp right now. What do I do with the other eggs? If I put them under a heat lamp will that work or will it kill them? What should I use for humidity? THey have pips, one has a beak showing. I do not have an incubator.

 

[Guitartists]

If you don;t have an incubator, then you might as well try the lamp. Some people have used electric skillets, etc... but I doubt you would have time to get it adjusted just right..... if you can keep them around 100 degrees and put damp papertowels or something on them to keep the humidity high... maybe they could hatch. Good luck!

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Try putting them in a small plastic totebox or a small cardboard box place a towel on the bottom and add a wet washcloth then cover the whole thing mostly with plastic wrap to help keep the temp and humidity level stable...leave an opening for air and the lamp or light...try covering around it will a towel even...hope all that made sense I can see the picture of it in my mind.....they may hatch .....

 

[jakmallex]

Thanks for the advice. I actually ended up putting the hen and her babies in a dog crate b/c the babies are so tiny I was afraid they would get stuck around the pen they were in. Since I moved her (and it's getting dark) she settled down and started to sit on her hatched babies, so I moved the eggs back under her. Hopefully she'll stay there, at least until the wiggling chirping one hatches. I think one is bad and I don't know about the other, but I figured I'd give them a chance anyway.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Thats sounds like a better plan!.... good luck...she should settle in and take care of them....

 

[Eggseronious]

Was your broody a pullet? Lots of people wont let a pullet set just because of that.

 

[jakmallex]

Yeah she's 8.5 months old. I didn't intend for her to go broody. She was molting and not laying, then I didn't check for eggs for awhile b/c of that and one day she surprised me by sitting on 13 of them. I didn't have the heart to take her eggs away from her, so I let her hatch them. Even if the other 3 eggs do not hatch, 9 out of 13 is pretty good (one egg got lost about a week ago).