More on Silkies... baby silkie chick pics, incubator experiences, and advice for new hatchers.

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I think you're lucky to have broody hens. I am hoping one of my five hens will go broody asap. I can't wait to have a mama with her babies. We started with 20 eggs for incubating and after some not fertile, some not hatching, one deformed, one with a serious eye issue, one that wouldn't grow, and one lost to a hawk, we only have five hens and five roosters. We may need to eliminate a couple roosters in the future, but for the moment they all get along. Only two of my hens have started laying at 5 1/2 mths old... giving us 4-5 eggs per week. I'm sure the others will start soon.

Does anyone have any idea if the layers or the non-layers are more likely to go broody??
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Thanks.
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We have one bantam silkie splash hen who is nearly 6 months old. She began laying a few weeks ago. (She is also the fave of many of our roosters and we are 100% sure all her eggs are fertilized. lol). We saved her last four eggs and put her in a separate area with a specially built nesting box and such. Yesterday we put her four eggs in the nest and she rolled them around for a while and sat on them a few minutes here and there, but then ignored them. This morning she laid a fifth egg in the nest, but had pushed the other four out. We aren't sure what we should do next or what she may do next. Anyone have any thoughts on this??
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Well...she pulled the other four eggs back in and added a sixth, but she still wouldn't sit. We put the six in an incubator cuz we simply can't wait to see our first babies from our first hens.
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Maybe she will wanna sit on another batch in the near future.
 
Adorable!!
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Our six eggs are on day 6 in the incubator. After candling tonight we decided that there was such minimal development in one of them compared to all the others that we removed it. We have 6 more now that we will start incubating tonight.
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chikymommadukes said:
Well...she pulled the other four eggs back in and added a sixth, but she still wouldn't sit. We put the six in an incubator cuz we simply can't wait to see our first babies from our first hens.
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Maybe she will wanna sit on another batch in the near future.
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If you can, get golf balls and stick a whole bunch of em in her nest. Like about, 5-6. Leave them in there and hopefully you will have a broody hen!
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Thats what I did to get all my broodies.
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We got eleven babies from our incubator and then our hen, Sookie, decided she felt like sitting on a buncha eggs!! ....( a couple day accumulation from all 5 of our hens). Not sure how many are under her....could be as many as 8 or 9 ?!!. She has been sitting on them diligently for about 12 days now. Our Sookie went broody at only 6 1/2 months old. Lucky us!
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We have a temporary "coop" set up in the garage that is somewhat heated already and we added an additional space heater to prevent temps lower than 45 degrees so our broody girl and all our chickies are comfortable...esp during these recent low temps. Brrrr!!!

Now we've decided to get some ducks this spring. It will be fun building a large natural looking pond for them. Can't wait!!
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Aw :love please post some pics of your momma and babies when they hatch. PLEEZE?!?
I, myself, have 4 hens and a roo. My rooster is blue and he has a blue, splash and 2 blue cream (porcelain) girls. Their first eggs are in my incubator and are due to hatch on Wednesday :celebrate I'm especially excited to see what the blue x blue cream chicks will look like!!!
I've been hoping one of the girls would go broody, but no such luck. Thanks goodness I have the bator to fuel my addiction :gig
Silkies are the best!!!
Nikki
 

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