Hen abanded the nest and now one of the abandoned eggs is chirping. Anything I can do?

[wholewheatchicken]

I keep thinking about you and I wanted to add if the chick hatches out, it will have to be somewhere very warm to dry up. I had my first hatch this weekend and it's a very long story and I messed things up. To get my two babies dry that did make it I turned on my electric blanket - cold where I live and I make about zero body heat - and put the chicks in my hand and cupped them and kept them in my hands under the blankets like that. It worked, but it took about four hours. That is the only part that I don't know if momma hen will do. She should be sitting on her babies quite a bit, so that might work putting it under her as soon as it is born. I have more broody hen experience than hatching experience.

 

[SuzanneM]

She has 6 chicks now. A friend recommended putting it under her tonight while she was asleep. Does that sound like a good idea? The chick did hatch and its doing well. The light I had nearbys battery ran out but I remembered we had a heating pad. The same friend suggested that on low with a towel on top.

 

[SuzanneM]

it's semi warm in our cabin now due to me closing all of the windows and doors and running the dryer. We had an oddly cool day today. Yesterday we were sweating and today at's been cool and rainy all day.. figures!
. It gets cool here every night so I'm hoping by then the chick is nice and dry and I can put her under the momma

 

[SuzanneM]

Okay... here's the chickie

 

[wholewheatchicken]

Oh my goodness....it is so cute. CONGRAGULATIONS!!!!

The heating pad will work too. I use that myself....like I said, I make just about zero body heat.
You can wait until night, but just keep a good eye on the hen and make sure she doesn't freak out. I had a hen I tried to slip chicks under at night with a little flashlight going and she tried to kill them. She only wanted her very own babies. The broody hen that I gave the four chicks to didn't really care that I put babies under her....didn't even bat a feather. I did have her in my laundry room at that time so I just turned off the big lights and had a little lamp on. I think they will either do it or not and the time of day doesn't fool them. But since she has so many I don't think she will notice one more and it is the same age as the others. In my experience the momma sits tight on her little babies for the first week, only occassionally getting up to teach them to eat and drink and use the restroom.
Please keep updates. I am so happy to hear all went well for you.
And by the way

There is so much useful information on here.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

I would love to know on average what are the ambient air temperatures and humidity in the area where you are at? I am hoping your information might help me figure out how to incubate a little better.

 

[SuzanneM]

Thanks for the welcome. I was frantically googling and ran across this forum. The chick is starting to look dryer and a bit fluffy around the edges.

Of course, our friends are coming home tomorrow and I was hoping to spend today cleaning and getting the house back in order. Yeah. didn't happen LOL. I spent it googling about chickens, monitoring the temp, etc.. all day long.

 

[SuzanneM]

Today I would guess it's been around 70 all day. quite cool. When I noticed she had abandoned the eggs I brought that one inside (there were 2 others but those were of the same age as the other eggs so I didn't bother), lightly wrapped a cheesecloth around it and put a flashlight shining near it. I'm not sure what temp it was.. I'd guess around 95ish? I was afraid of getting it too hot. I have memories of killing 2 chicks when I was young by putting them in an area with a heat lamp that was too hot. It's stuck with me for forever LOL. I kept googling and some said to mist the egg with warm water so I did that twice I believe and just tried to keep it warm then I turned on the dryer.

A combination of pure dumb luck, intuition, googling, and browsing this forum.

I know how to say what they call these chickens in spanish.. but no clue how to spell that and it's probably not the actual breed name LOL. Hmm.. off to see if I can find out what breed it is. It's TEENY.

 

[justin24]

go check on the other eggs just because the didn't hatch don't mean they won't keep them for about 3 days and try to candle them

 

[jt813]

post more pictures of the fuzz ball i need to see her/him