Is 2 days apart too far to place eggs under broody hen?

[marli365]

On April 1 I placed 4 eggs under one of my broody hens. Unfortunately, the egg I really wanted to hatch had a thin shell. It took two days for that chicken to produce another egg! Ugh!
Since I had two other broodies (those bantams, right??) I put the new egg under one of them. It would really be great if I only had to deal with one Momma, since I don’t have two extra coops.
This morning, the broody with the four eggs (one thin shell) had rejected the thin shell egg, and seems to have eaten the contents completely. (Should I be freaking out, or is this sort of normal? She DOES have food and water!)

My question is this: Should I move the two-days-younger egg underneath her, or not? I do see that others have had problems with broken eggs.
One mean idea is to let the other broody hatch her, and then try to move her. I’m a bit worried about the fallout from that. Help!

I can certainly try putting her in a dog crate to hatch the one other egg, but that seems like a lot of extra work and trouble.

 

[NatJ]

I would not try putting an extra egg under the first broody 2 days later. After the first chicks hatch, she might not sit long enough to hatch the last one-- and since it is the one that is most important to you, that would not be good!

If the one egg is most important to you, maybe you could give it to the hen, and discard the other three that are older? That would give you just one clutch to manage.

You could even wait a few days, to collect several eggs from the preferred hen, and then give all those eggs to a broody to hatch.

This morning, the broody with the four eggs (one thin shell) had rejected the thin shell egg, and seems to have eaten the contents completely. (Should I be freaking out, or is this sort of normal? She DOES have food and water!)

Since it had a thin shell, maybe it just broke.
It is probably better for her to clean up a broken egg (eat it) rather than have a mess in the nest.

 

[marli365]

The pieces of the eggshell were pretty far from the nest, but I get your point. I wonder if this is normal though.

 

[Yardmom]

It is normal for the hen to eat a broken egg. Does the second hen only have one egg?
A chick that is 2 days behind is likely to be ok with the others (I have had that happen when eggs were set together). If I knew I had that situation I would keep the broody in a dog crate.
In your situation I'm not sure I would move the egg. There is always risk with moving.

 

[marli365]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Broody #1 with three eggs is in her own house, with a heated floor and food and water. Broody #2 with my ”important” egg is up in a 4 foot high nest box for now, but I can move her to a separate place inside the chicken yard that I have set up, soon. I will probably give her different eggs to start with to see if she will keep sitting in the new place, before giving her the important egg. It looks like I have no real choice but to have two Mommas.

 

[Mrs. K]

I would not use a heated floor with a broody hen. Just an ordinary nest material.