How long will my silkie sit on these eggs?

[crazy chook]

My little silkie decided to go broody and wanted to sit on her eggs that she as well as my other two girls had laid. She was sitting on around 8 eggs and about 1 week into her sitting on them I noticed she hadn't got off to go to the toilet so I took her off the nest. To my surprise her 8 eggs had turned into 17 eggs..........the other girls must have been getting in there with her and adding to her clutch.
1 hatched today YEY!!

How long will she continue to sit on the other eggs, I assume more will hatch over the next 24hrs but will she sit there for another week?
I have turned the incubator on and I will just wait and see?

 

[Chic Chick]

Usually they will only sit another day or two after the first chick hatches so hopefully you'll have a few more hatch before she abandons the nest....or she might stay sitting and ignore the other chicks, or even kill them.
To try to hatch the others in an incubator is iffy because the ones ready to hatch need higher humidity, which can kill the chicks at the other stages of development.
That is why it is so important to move the broody to a private spot where the others won't bother her. Sometimes the other hens will chase a broody right off the nest so they can lay in it - especially if it's the favorite nest.
You should have marked all the eggs you gave her, and checked every day, and removed the new unmarked ones and this problem won't happen.
Good luck.

 

[FenDruadin]

I have a broody in with the rest of my flock, and every morning I have to pick her up and remove the eggs that have just been laid (her original eggs are carefully & clearly marked in permanent marker on both sides). But I learned the hard way--with the same experience you are having!

It's true that the hen won't sit more than another day or two. I would wait and watch--when she gets up and leaves the nest, take the rest of the eggs in and candle them. If it were me, I'd discard any that were very early in development, but put them all in the incubator if you wish. But mark them according to your best guesses on development. If most are well-developed (mostly filling the egg and/or internally pipped), I would go ahead and raise the humidity in the incubator. You could even leave some in the turner and some on their sides, according to their state of development.

Then I would watch the eggs like crazy. As soon as each bird is most of the way out of the shell (even if it's still pushing the top off), I'd remove it to a temporary "recovery" brooder--a box with a towel in the bottom and a heat lamp adjusted to reach roughly 99-100 degrees. That will prevent accidents with the machinery of the turner. Alternately, you could just manually turn those that need turning, but then you'd have to be opening and closing the incubator and messing with humidity.

Of course, the higher humidity is going to mess with the eggs that are still early in incubation, and there's not much you can do about that except hope for the best and hatch them on their sides (as opposed to in cartons--I have a theory about this--I actually hatch in cartons most of the time but I believe that when air cells are underdeveloped from high humidity that eggs have better success hatching on their sides so the baby doesn't have to work against gravity to keep its bill in the air cell above the fluids).

Any way you cut it, unless you have two incubators, you're going to be messing around a lot to get the eggs to hatch. But I think you can pull it off if you want to.

If you *do* happen to have two incubators, then it's simple--prepare one for lockdown and one for regular incubation. Candle all the eggs, and put those that have filled the entire egg and/or have pipped internally into the hatcher, and the rest in the other. Candle every few days and move those that are ready into lockdown.

Good luck. And have fun.

 

[crazy chook]

Hi, I can see another one this morning but I didn't move her to check if she has any more. There are two pens in that yard and she is in her own one. Since she started sitting the other two girls decided not to lay in their usual nests but in hers?? They still prefer to sleep in the big pen with the rooster just lay in the silkies nest...

I have prepared a new yard for her that is completely covered from crows that I will move her entire box to. Her box is only 1.5 feet x 3 feet with a hinged lid so its easy for hubby and I to move.

I will have to post some photos, they are so tiny and so cute

 

[Chic Chick]

Thats great! I hope you find the original 8 eggs have all hatched when you check under her!
It won't bother her if you check under her right now, but it might make her abandon the nest if you move her now.