mother hen left the nest

[irenew]

My broody has abandoned her eggs. She left the eggs looking pale and sick and hid in the corners of the garden looking sick and miserable. This is two weeks into the time period and now she has abandoned the nest. On the plus side she looks much healthier but on the minus is there any way to get her to finish the job or has she left them because the eggs were no good. It is her first clutch and she hasn't kept them as clean as she should have.

 

[Bock_Bock]

just to be on safe sid ei would candle the eggs see if there is still movement in them and i would put them in an incubator if you have 1 if not i would make a quick one out of a lamp and some sort of box, do you know if she was eating and drinking while she was on the nest? if this was her first time she might not have gotten off herself to do this, sometimes you yourself have to push off the broody hen to make sure she eats and drinks

 

[irenew]

yeah she came out each day she didn't eat or drink much, BUT what she didn't do was a BIG poop. I know that sounds funny but my other hen when she raised eggs would come out and do an enormous smelly poop each day. Also this hen that has given up didn't dirt bath(my other hen would come out each day gobble down food and water, poop and dirt bath. So yeah I don't think Pexi was really looking after herself.

I've got the eggs under a lamp

 

[irenew]

One of the egg has an active crack in it yeah. Another has a small crack

 

[irenew]

I thought I'd let you know that the eggs that my hen left hatched. I got 7 , 4 blacks, 2 yellows and one chipmonk. The first two hatched normally The others pipped but failed to progress so I helped them after a few days.There is a 5 day difference in age between the first ones and the lastThe 2 that hatched first came from the smallest eggs. I candled and checked the remaining eggs. 2 were infertile, one had stopped growing at a week and the other 2 which failed to hatch were lavenders (not so good) Still a clutch of 7 bouncy babies round the house was more than I expected.It has been a bit difficult with the age differences. The first 2 have wings now and boss the babies. I had to seperate them until the younger ones were on their feet.

Here's some pictures

This one likes cuddles yes it is alive.

These ones are Twilight fans or at least fans of the red sticker on the DVD's cover

 

[OzarkCountryGirl]

Congrats! They sure are cuties (I love the little Cuddles chick).

Good job on catching her abandoning the eggs before they got too cold.

 

[LaSombra]

love the pic of the cuddly one

That's so cute! Congrats on the new brood. Glad you caught the empty nest in time!