how many eggs are too many?

chicky pillow

In the Brooder
11 Years
Nov 26, 2008
11
0
22
Albemarle
Chicky pillow is finally incubating a nest of eggs! she started with 10, but our other 2 hens keep depositing eggs near her and she takes them in - she has 18 now. I marked them all, but this is not fail safe - today i broke 3 good eggs for cooking- not a pretty sight - so i'm leaving her clutch well alone now. Trouble is she will have eggs of differing ages. Do i just wait for the first to hatch and assume the rest are going to be abandoned? Can she possible go on adding eggs. i went out tonight and candled a few - some showed very little, another was completely black - does that mean its nearly ready or completely rotten (another fear)
aany advise would be appreciated.
 
Not sure how to answer your entire question, but I would think a "bad" egg would smell, so it may be just be the developing chick you're seeing in the "black eggs." Are you seeing any veins and/or movement?
 
thank you that's what I'm hoping. Would a bad one smell through the egg shell? Today i have fenced off the nesting area so the other chickens are not able to lay there - I should have thought of this sooner!!
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I know they stink to high heaven in the incubator if they go bad, so I'm pretty sure you could smell it - especially out in the heat of summer. Let us know how things progress
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Hens will usually abandon the nest after some chicks are hatched.

With the broody hen I had sitting on a few eggs we drew a circle around the big end with a pencil for the eggs we wanted hatched and removed extra eggs added daily.

This came the hard way after my dad got some eggs and broke an egg over the pan and 14 day old chick fell out..
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Completely black when candled from the side means that it is full of chick. If you candle directly from the big end, you should see the air space.
 
Thank you all - these are really helpful replies - I saw the light part at the fat end as you suggested - so all's looking pretty good, there are a fair number in that condition when i candled a few this evening. I made a firmer fence than this morning - to deter the others and put a separate food and water container in the area for mom. Now i am going to be concerned if they hatch if i should let her keep them - i think they will attract the skunk who's stolen eggs before - he may take he young chicks! but still, mustn't count my chicks as they say....
How many times has that been written that on this web site I wonder?
 
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Today I took 3 eggs my hen had been sitting on for 22 days and put them to my ear to see if I could hear the chick inside then smelled it. It just smelled a little cuz of the hen sitting on it and she had gotten a little poop on it but otherwise no smell. A few mins. later when I put them down on the ground so I could close the coop door they exploaded and I was gagging the smell was soooo bad! To answer your question, you can not smell all rotten eggs till they are broken.
Edited to say my hen was still trying to hatch the 3 rotten eggs cuz when I rolled them out from under her she grabbed them right back from me with her beak and pushed them and the 2 chicks back under her. She had no idea they were bad so guess not all hens will throw out bad ones.
 
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That's pretty unusual. We can always smell bad eggs in the incubator. The kids usually pick up on it first; I guess young noses are more sensitive that those that have been in use for years and years. Then we sniff the eggs until we find the dud, put it in double-ziplock bags, and toss them in the trash.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.CountryChickens.com
 

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