Mother Hen Murdered an unborn chick HELP

[BlackLotus44]

One of our Broody Hens either stepped on the egg, but's that's very unlikely because their tough shell and they know where they are right? Why would the hen break open the fertilized egg? It's a few weeks along.

 

[Pyxis]

She could have stepped on it; it does unfortunately happen and especially with large breeds there's a potential for that. Either that or someone else tried to get into her nesting box and the jostling resulted in an egg getting broken. I wouldn't assume yet that she did it one purpose unless more eggs start turning up broken. Sometimes broody hens just aren't good mothers and start to kill their chicks as they hatch. It's rare but it does happen. At a few weeks along they might be starting to hatch (they hatch at 21 days) so I'd keep an eye on the situation just to be safe, but there is a good chance it was completely accidental.

 

[Shaunassy]

It actually is very possible that the hen could have stepped on and broke her egg on accident. We have a whole seperate pen and coop for broody hens inside the main coop run and the first time i let a broody hen hatch eggs she was in there all by herself and she accidently crushed 5 of her 9 eggs a week before they were to be born. I made the mistake of cutting the front to low on her nesting plastic bin thinking the chicks wouldnt be able to get out once they hatched and getting up she knocked eggs out of the nest on accident. The broody coop was something we whipped up quick and the floor was made of rabbit wire and slightly was at an incline dipping towards the middle. So when she tried to get the eggs back in the nest she couldnt and broke/killed the chicks on accident while it was sad we did in the end get 4 healthy and beautiful baby chicks but we def lived and learned from that experience.