I've had quite the strange hatch over here with my other clutch of eggs. So initially I had 11 silkie eggs under a large fowl hen. She ate two and then bailed on the remaining 9 on day 9. I convinced my silkie to sit on them and they seemed to be developing well.
In the meantime I acquired a nesting box with 11 eggs and three silkies sitting on them off of a gal on craigslist. She didn't seem to know when the eggs were all gonna hatch so that set has been interesting. Those hens hatched out one the night I brought them home but none of the three decided to show it the food or water and I found it dead a day later. The next few of their babies hatched together and I took one of the broodies off the nest and put her in one of my broody houses with the three little chicks.
The next couple chicks from the new batch of eggs hatched on day 21 for my original clutch of eggs so I gave those two chicks to that hen in case her eggs never hatched. Well finally yesterday on day 24 she hatched out two chicks from her clutch and then bailed on the remaining 7 eggs even tho three more were pipped! I quickly rushed the remaining eggs out back to the two co-broodies who were crazy excited to get 7 more eggs.
So now I have three chicks under a new mama hen, four chicks under my original mama hen, and 9 eggs left to hatch out back under two broodies. My plan is to give any remaining chicks to my original mama hen to add to her 4 since I already know she is a fantastic mother. Once the two out back are done hatching I'm just going to take away their nesting box. They don't seem to want to mother anything really. Lol.
