Hen hatching chickens for first time

[hcastellan]

Hi everyone! I am new (and quickly obsessed) with my chickens!! I have my first broody hen who is sitting on fertilized eggs (today being day 21). This morning, I came to the grage to the smell of rotten eggs. I quickly made her another clean box, rinsed and moved the eggs and her. She settled in fine but now I'm worried bc her under feathers and belly still smell. She had gotten mixed up about halfway thru her set and went back to the wrong nest box (that's when I moved her to the dog kennel in the garage and since she's been a super want to be momma) so,since the eggs were cold, I didn't have high hopes for any to hatch but wanted to give it a shot... do you think I will have any luck? Should I go move her and wash her belly??
Also ... if none hatch.. what do I do with her? Try and find her some new peeps to adopt? Or try the ice cubes to break her broodiness?? So many newbie chicken questions!!

 

[hcastellan]

So I went ahead and water tested the eggs... all 4 are perfect and appear to be good!
I also went ahead and washed her. The smell was so bad and I figured that if anything hatched that alone would kill them so I didn't really have anything to lose. Only problem I didn't fully think thru was that she is now wet (used nice warm water and she took right back to her nest) ... I e read that humidity is important. Is that the case w the hen or just when using an incubator? Will her being wet cause even more problems? Feeling like I've royally failed this mama hen!

 

[Pork Pie]

By now she will be mostly dry, so I'd advise letting her do her thing and see what happens. When my broody hatches, i do not interfere in any way, e.g. candling eggs etc. If they hatch, they hatch.

Good luck
CT

 

[hcastellan]

I didn't candle either. I planned on not interfering ... which is how I ended up wits rotten eggs under her. I feel so bad!
She's dry this morning and happy. Today is day 22. I learned this late on in the process but she is such a good mom, she had never been leaving the nest ... so should I pull her off today to get her to poo??