How long can a mother hen leave her eggs?

[Cristin]

This is my first hen who is sitting on eggs so Im a newbie! But my hen has been sitting on her eggs for 3 days now without moving once, I had to hand feed her and encourage her to drink water.. Then just there she came out of her house and walked around on the grass for about 10 minutes. Maybe I over-reacted but I panicked a bit about the eggs and went out to check, they weren't cold but I still encouraged her to go back in..she sat back down on them again thankfully! Is this normal and am I just completely over-reacting? Any Advice would be great!
Cristín

 

[darin367]

10 minutes is totally normal for a hen to get up and take care of business..... she'll do fine, don't stress

 

[florida lee]

I've seen my hens leave the eggs for close to an hour,,, no problems encountered with the hatch.

 

[Cristin]

Ok that's great to hear, relieved, I'm definitely just over stressing Thanks!

 

[Bunnylady]

I've had lots of broodies that would get up when I fed the flock, eat, drink, poop, and go back to the eggs after a few minutes. Just what she should do (they do some MONSTER poops when they brood!). Perfectly normal, the eggs will be fine. I have seen nests that I wasn't sure how long the hen had been gone, eggs stone cold (or at least, whatever the air temp. was at that time), and the eggs hatched on time, no problem. There have been a couple of times that a hen was away for hours, and I took her cold eggs and moved them to the incubator, and they hatched. I had a couple of pipped eggs that got left for a few hours in January that wound up cold and silent, I put them in the incubator, they hatched - those two Seramas are still alive today. Eggs can be much more durable than you'd think!

 

[Cristin]

Thats great to hear too, thanks! I cant wait for my chicks now!