Is it to cold for a broody to hatch eggs?

MRNpoultry

Songster
11 Years
Mar 2, 2008
1,467
7
181
Gibsonville, NC
I have a friend who said if I can get one of my hens broody he will send some oeg eggs. Is it still to cold for her to hatch them and will they have a chance? I whould like for them to hatch and another breed to my flock.
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I'm in Eastern Virginia and my broody hatched 7 four weeks ago and I put another 11 under her. She has been raising 18 for 4 weeks. As long as you have a draft free place I don't believe it is too cold. Of course when the chicks hatched I put a heat lamp in the coop but mama hen kept them all under her most of the time. ALL 18!
 
We have got a lamp socket in our coop. I caught one of my hen's starting to go broody. Once she starts sitting, all I have to do is slide the eggs under her. Right
18 :eek:
 
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I have 5 week old from a broodie and I am in upper Maryland. So it must not get tooo cold, water froze, but she kept the eggs warm 11 are alive and doing well. one never made it fully out of shell, and one didnt even start to develope, so 11 of 13 not bad considering we had temps as low as 0 for quite a few days. I didnt give extra heat till chicks hatched.

edited to correct bad spelling.
 
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Would you take the un-fertile (spelling) eggs out?
I am new to hatching eggs
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One more question once they start to hatch will she get off of them.
 
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somewhat of a newbie but did watch my last broody hatch her eggs .. my experience is that she will sit on those eggs until SHE thinks the last viable one has hatched ... during those last three days she was rumbling and peeping at the eggs, and I think she waited until she had hatched any that had movement or peeping, before getting up off the nest to herd the hatched chicks around

the early-to-hatch chicks just popped in and out from under her; I'd scattered chick-starter in front as soon as I noticed the first chick ... chicks would peck-and-run back under the warmth


of her 19 eggs ... eight hatched, one was obviously a dud (lightweight so I opened it, just a little "stuff" stuck to one inner side, but otherwise empty), the other ten didn't peep or move when I checked them, and most of them "sloshed" ... no chicks in them ...

yeah, I'd candle them by Day 14 (didn't know this myself then) and discard any obviously infertile ones ... that way the broody can concentrate on the "good" ones

(she wouldn't have been setting on so many if I'd spotted the nest earlier ... one of the hazards of free-ranging ... )
 

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