I have a hen brooding on four eggs and today is day 20. My question is I stopped checking the eggs two days ago and now I'm curious as if they are moving or if the shells have cracked any. Would it be alright to move her so I could check or just be patient and wait to see new chickie appear? This is my first time at having her brood her eggs.
I checked mine last year and they were fine - momma hen didn't mind too much. She gave a little warning peck and a little chicken growl but otherwise just kept an eye on her egg. Even took a few pics of then when they started to pip and zip. But I didn't handle them for very long - and it was warmer out - it was late spring early summer. The two that hadn't pipped or zipped yet I did pick up and we could hear the peep inside - well - peeping - it was very cool. It responded to us. My son - who loves the chickens and was soooooo into hatching them (he was amazed by it) - anyway - we gently tapped on the egg and the chick would peep in response. We put it back quickly though - and within a day it had hatched. They took about 24 for all to hatch.
It was the best thing to hear him the day the first one hatched - he got home from school - and like he did daily - checked on momma and the eggs. He called me at work and was like "MOM ! There's a baby chick ! it Hatched ! It's still wet but it's soooo cute !" - by the time I got home from work a second had hatched - the third was overnight early the next morning and the last was before he got home from school. We started with six and the four hatched. The others we knew were not developed and had pulled them out from under her. I had numbered them and kept a little chart - checked them every few days and kept track of development - so I knew which was which when checking them and if they were showing progression.
OH MY GOSH!!!! I just went out to check on the chicken and discovered of the eggs broke in half with nothing in it. I'm guessing the baby is hiding under mom. Today is day 20 and there is still three eggs under her. How long before they come out of laying under mama chicken?
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OMG! 2!
I have found that sometime they even crawl up under momma's armpit... so if at some point you do lift her to see, be very careful that the baby doesn't get dropped out.
It'll probably a couple of days since she has more eggies to hatch.
Congratulations!
