Looking for some advice for next time...

[KDrake]

We had a broody hen that originally was sitting on 13 eggs. A couple broke, one disappeared and 2 stopped developing.

She had 8 eggs in the end. They were all alive and moving 4 days before they were due to hatch. 5 hatched within 5 days and are doing great! The other 3 hatched and all died.

2 of them looked like they pipped and then got stepped on and crushed. The one survived for a day and a half, the other one was halfway out of it's shell, dead. The other one hatched and was found dead with a long, fleshy string near its abdomen.

The ones that died did hatch several days after the first one. Our weather turned to crap the week they hatched. Our hen would get off the remaining eggs and make a nest in a different spot of her area.

I'm just devastated. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I really thought with a hen doing the work we would have a 100% hatch rate. Is there anything we should know for next time? Is there something we could've done different?

 

[Duck Hill]

Hatch rates are rarely 100%. With more experience and older age comes a higher hatch rate.

I have seen many first-year mothers abandon the eggs half way through incubation. Recently I had a first-year duck that sat long enough to hatch six eggs, but then she accidentally squashed the ducklings. Older mothers (second or third year) typically do a better job. Try again next year!