Missing chicken found and sitting on 23 plus eggs!!!!

[luckychik]

Ok I messed that up......the second paragraph was my answer to the top paragraph!

 

[Kelsie2290]

That is one ambitious chicken, must be the silkie in her... and the other half is cochin, oh boy ... why sit on a dozen eggs when you can have two dozen. She sure got close. If I understand your timeline right she has been missing/sitting for a good two weeks now? Like I said above, I would candle and see what you have. Would think that some of the eggs are not viable, taking those out should leave her with a more reasonable number. If she has gotten however many to this point, she should be able to finish them I would think. The other possible problem I see is that if they are not all her eggs, if other hens have been sneaking eggs in since she started sitting, you may have egg at different stages of incubation in there. You should be able to make a guess about that if you candle also... looks like she was just trying to give you a hand at filling up your incubators. If you know which are hers and which are not, you could just take the others away since we would assume that she did not start setting until she finished laying hers

 

[HomesteadDebi]

That is one ambitious chicken, must be the silkie in her... and the other half is cochin, oh boy ... why sit on a dozen eggs when you can have two dozen. She sure got close. If I understand your timeline right she has been missing/sitting for a good two weeks now? Like I said above, I would candle and see what you have. Would think that some of the eggs are not viable, taking those out should leave her with a more reasonable number. If she has gotten however many to this point, she should be able to finish them I would think. The other possible problem I see is that if they are not all her eggs, if other hens have been sneaking eggs in since she started sitting, you may have egg at different stages of incubation in there. You should be able to make a guess about that if you candle also... looks like she was just trying to give you a hand at filling up your incubators. If you know which are hers and which are not, you could just take the others away since we would assume that she did not start setting until she finished laying hers

Yeah, what Kelsie said. I would add this...since she may be trying to add eggs in, I would mark the ones that she already has so that you know if she gets any new ones. Then those can be removed.

 

[luckychik]

Some of them are a darker shade so I can kind if tell the new eggs from the old! But marking them is a great idea I don't want those other hens dropping her anymore to sit on! Yeah about 2 weeks and a few days I was thinking that. I should have chicks by next weekend

 

[Delight30]

Some of them are a darker shade so I can kind if tell the new eggs from the old! But marking them is a great idea I don't want those other hens dropping her anymore to sit on! Yeah about 2 weeks and a few days I was thinking that. I should have chicks by next weekend

Maybe she is taking the other hens eggs and adding to her stock pile, check out this post https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/283029/how-does-a-chicken-move-her-eggs

 

[luckychik]

Starting Wednesday July 17, chicks have been hatching! I lost 2 not sure what happen. It looked like the egg had been pecked open. These two hens want to hatch but they just let the babies wander all over the coop. Maybe they are just worried about their eggs. IDk, I did find another chicken to sit on the eggs. So altogether I have 8 babies so far! To go along with the 34 I hatched out this spring. TOOOO many chickens!!!!!! EEK!