How many eggs can my silkie incubate?

[MissesP]

I'm fairly new at the whole chicken business, so any info would be great!

We live in MN so we keep our 2 girls (Americana and Silkie) in our coop near the house and recently (May1st) put in one of our nice roos with the girls in hopes to get some fertile eggs.

My silkie went broody almost instantly May 6thish, which was unlike her other broodiness and they both started laying eggs in a different nesting box and then stopped laying eggs altogether. I got excited and left them there hoping for some chicks. We get her up to eat and drink and put it close to her since she won't get up much on her own. BUT she has about 12 eggs under her!!

I've never done this before! I have no Idea how many eggs she should take on!

The other day I took two out because they were out from under her and her wings and bit chilly... I threw those two in the compost and one was a forming chick to some extent.
So now I am scared to remove anymore of them!

My husband and I did some candling today and got mixed results! We saw movement in some, darkness with the air pocket (?) and some with veins and only three we knew were not fertile.

Any tips?
Could they all be hatched with her being the only one broody? Or do they hatch at different times? How can we candle and know for sure (beside movement) to leave them??

 

[Michael OShay]

I've incubated eggs under my Black Silkies before and 12 eggs is too many. Max is about 8 and I wouldn't really recommend that many. I usually left 6 under my Silkie hens.

 

[MissesP]

Thank you for your response! So which eggs should I keep? I don't know much about candling but all but the three seemed viable...Do you know much about candling.. or what to look for?

 

[Michael OShay]

Backyard Chickens has an excellent thread with great pics on the candling progression through incubation. You will find it at https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...g-candling-pics-progression-though-incubation

 

[mollybuck]

well, if you had 12 and tossed 2, get rid of the 3 clears, and you have 7, she should be able to handle that many. Thats whats is under my broody silkie now!! Good luck, sounds like you and she are doing a good job so far!

 

[MissesP]

Thanks! But we actually took the two away before.. so now there are still 9 eggs under her! Do you think that leaving them all under her would hurt the chances??

 

[Michael OShay]

I agree with mollybuck. I would remove two more and get the number down to seven.