- Jul 12, 2012
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had a hen hatch 2 of 9 eggs this past sunday. she then kicked all the rest out. 2 days before they hatched another hen layed an egg in the nest. so with our limited resourses to incubate eggs we put them in a box with a heat lamp and a damp towel. not ideal, but decided to give it a try, today we candled them and they all seemed dead or empty except one, which based on pics we see on this site and youtube, seemed about 10 days? it moved a little in the egg from what we could see. it isnt moving now when we looked this evening but otherwise looks the same as it did this morning. we cracked open the dead looking ones and they were looking to be about 14- 15 days and were stinky and very dead. im afraid we fried the ones that were dead with the heat lamp. we want to at least give the remaining one a shot, no other chickens are broody or we would have put it under another hen. what should we do? how can we be sure its alive? how long should we give it? is there something better we could do than a damp towel and heat lamp? all suggestions welcome!
