Incubator or Broody??

[stormylady]

Thankyou for you opinions! It seem most people agree that the Broody girls are the way to go.
So...Ok this is what I did, I took all of Misty's( SF/Silkie mixes) eggs, she had 11 under her, 4 huge green EE eggs (I gave her), and 7 of the SF/S ( she aquired for herself) mix eggs ( pretty small) and replaced them with the 10 Coro. Split Sussex eggs, fairly small eggs so she can cover all of them at once. The EE and SF/S eggs were from my flock so I can always get more of them so not a really big deal, I was thinking of putting them in the incubator but really with these 10 from crfarm and planning on getting another dozen from Bargain of the coronation I feel like the extra chicks would be a bit much. Diamonds eggs are due to hatch tomarrow actually so didn't want to take hers since they are so close to hatching, Henna has a whole like 15 Salmon Fav./ Silkie eggs which I really wanted her to hatch because I really like the mix (My Avatar is one of the girls) but I may remove her eggs and replace them with fake eggs til the eggs Im getting from Bargain comes in. Because the Sussex are such an Awesome Breed and I've wanted them for a long time. Anyway I hope that in 21 days I can post pictures of my new little babies!

Thanks All! Sandy

 

[dldolan]

Well, the first broody cochin I had did NOT MOVE off the nest for 8 days, so I finally picked her up, making sure she didn't have eggs under her wings, and brought her off the next twice a day. After another 5 days, she did this on her own when she heard me coming...but she had gotten so skinny without my understanding that she hadn't moved! ARgh! Anyway, now my policy is to give them a "walk" when I go out in the morning and again in the evening. I watch that they eat and drink and jump back on.

 

[audrey02026]

Well, the first broody cochin I had did NOT MOVE off the nest for 8 days, so I finally picked her up, making sure she didn't have eggs under her wings, and brought her off the next twice a day. After another 5 days, she did this on her own when she heard me coming...but she had gotten so skinny without my understanding that she hadn't moved! ARgh! Anyway, now my policy is to give them a "walk" when I go out in the morning and again in the evening. I watch that they eat and drink and jump back on.

I just put sand in the run and the coop is clean. I seriously don't think she has been getting up to poop or eat/drink. I did take her off the other day and saw her drink but I walked away before I noticed if she eat anything. I have NO POOP in the coop and didn't notice anything in the run. Like I said I cleaned the run and added new sand so it will be obvious if she does. I didn't touch her today. I'm hoping she just gets up when I'm at work if only for a minute. In any case we are almost there only 8 days left.