Is it ok if a hen hatches only one chick?

Hi!

My kids have a mixed flock of backyard chickens, and one of them, an exceptionally small black Cochin bantam, has been broody since early June. We kept trying to break her of it (we have no rooster) and have been completely unsuccessful. In July, we brought home a few fertile eggs for her to try, and they were all duds. She kept on setting even when we took them from her. After months of this, she seemed to be wasting away, so we tried again. It's been breaking our hearts to see how badly she wants to be a mom, so we tried again. A local farmer gave us three fertile bantam Cochin eggs and we we put them under her 19 days ago. After we candled them, we saw that one was clear ( we tossed it) and two seemed to be developing. Tonight, we heard one of them peeping and tapping from inside the egg. So exciting! However, what do we do if the other doesn't hatch? Is it ok for a chick to be an "only"?

We're grateful for any advice!

 

Thanks, all, for your helpful advice! We did indeed get only one chick. We finally took the other dud egg away. Hopefully this will encourage Mama to get up a bit more often. She's a wonderful mother and is fussing like crazy over her precious baby. Mama's a black cochin and baby's a barred cochin. We've been having some success feeding mother and baby hard boiled egg along with chick starter and mama's been eating some scratch grain along with the egg. She's been subsisting on tomatoes, and peaches (she won't drink water, but the baby will) and I also fed her cooked brown rice. I'll try the cooked oatmeal and yogurt and honey, too.

They've been brooding in a cage in my laundry room with regular trips outside. We took the mama and baby outside for a bit yesterday and today. She seems fine with the temp. I'm very concerned about how the other hens in the yard will react to Daisy's chick. Daisy was a high ranking hen, but she's lost a lot of standing by being so out of it all summer. Any suggestions about how and when to introduce her and the chick to the others? We've got mixed flock (actually two separate flocks, two coops, but they do run around together in the same yard on a daily basis) -- one coop houses bantam feather foots and the other, three Easter Eggers and a standard Cochin. The bantams completely rule the yard.

My kids named the chick Chrysanthemum. All of our feather foots have flower names.

I'm trying to get a photo from my uploads onto this message, but I forgot how to do it!