Mother hen throwing babies out :(

[Therliana]

Our Wyandotte Bella has been a greedy Mumma and has hoarded all our chickens eggs to sit on. She's been sitting on 30 eggs. This is her second time sitting on eggs, the first hatch in February went well and she hatched 4 eggs and has been an AMAZING Mumma.

Some babies hatched 5 days ago and she's sitting on more eggs, so we set up a brooder inside and took the babies inside so that she can concentrate on sitting on the rest of the eggs because she literally couldn't fit everything under her. She's hatched 10 live babies and 3 babies have hatched but died. The babies that we found dead were still wet, and under the Mum.

We candled them yesterday to see if they were viable eggs so we could figure out whether to let her keep sitting on them or give her babies back to her. As we were candling them we could hear one of the eggs chirping so we put them back and kept an eye on Mumma. The baby hadn't hatched last night, when I let them out this morning the baby had hatched but it was all dry and fluffed but wasn't under Mum, it was out in the open, stone cold and floppy.

I bought it inside and sat under the heat lamp massaging it and trying to gently blow air into it's beak for nearly 2 hours with no luck.

I'm curious as to why it may have died. I know the egg is from one of the first babies which is only 6 months old, so I'm wondering if maybe the 6 month old chicken that laid the egg maybe isn't old enough to be laying viable eggs.

Or my biggest worry is, did the Mumma Hen kick this baby out because we've taken her other babies off her? She is an amazing Mum and extremely protective of her babies and her eggs, so I couldn't imagine it's in her nature to do this but I don't really know how the chicken world works when it comes to taking their babies off them.

I would understand more mortality's earlier on when she did have so many eggs and chicks with her, but now she's down to a smaller number I'm baffled. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday: 1 Live Baby, 1 Dead Baby
Thursday: 9 Live Babies, 2 Dead Babies
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Nothing
Sunday: Nothing
Monday: 1 Dead Baby.

 

[pineapple416]

Sorry your babies are dying She might be kicking them off and they are dying because they get too cold, or maybe she doesn't have enough room under her for them. I would just keep a close eye on them and take them away from her as soon as they hatch.

 

[Therliana]

Thanks Pineapple416, we're trying to keep a close eye on her but also trying to balance not annoying her too much as well.

We've had some severe storm weather the last couple of nights, so I might go and barricade around her box some more, I don't think it will help all that much but this little baby this morning hadn't been gone for too long so it might hold a little more warmth into the nest that might give them a little bit longer to survive until we can get to them, and I'll go out through the night a bit more and check on her and get up earlier in the morning and head out to her.

We did consider incubating the eggs but because she'd been hoarding them over a 3 week period we would of faced a lot of challenges with incubation and trying to figure out which eggs were how many days old etc. so we decided to brood the babies instead, I'm just hoping we've not caused her any psychological damage that is now causing her to kill her babies. On the surface she seems to be quite settled and content but I guess you never know.

 

[centrarchid]

I almost always see immediate post-hatch mortality with extremely large clutches. Either they are being smashed under eggs or hen not able to adjust to get her weight off them when they cheep in distress. Pulling hatchlings out is good. I would even remove pipped eggs if you have an incubator to put them in.

 

[Therliana]

Thanks centrarchid, I don't have an incubator. I did consider getting one when they were starting to hatch so that I could incubate eggs and let Mum do her thing. But due to the varying stages of the eggs decided it would be easier to brood them and leave Mum to hatch them because from what I've read I'd have had to have more then one incubator to deal with before day 18 as well as after day 18.

If I can get my hands on an incubator, what is the best way to do it? I've never incubated before but have read that from day 18 onwards you don't open it at all. So would I need more then one incubator to deal with staggered pipping or would it be ok to open it and put a newly pipped egg into it/.

 

[centrarchid]

Get incubator going and place pipping eggs and wet hatchlings in it. Once chicks strong and dry place them in a brooder. You may be able to introduce whole lot to her once eggs hatched that will.

 

[Folly's place]

I think that you need to manage her clutches better; no more than ten or twelve eggs, all brooded within one day or two at most, and then isolation so no more eggs arrive in her nest. She can't manage that many eggs, no matter what! Mary

 

[Therliana]

Thank you so, so, SO much, you are a god send. We don't have any where around here that sells incubators so I'll go do some research see what I can come up with and see if I can't get one shipped ASAP and do some research on how the heck to operate one lol

I know a couple of people who do have incubators, I think they may be using them at the moment though, If I do happen to strike it lucky that I can borrow one is there anything special I need to do to sterilise it before using it?

 

[centrarchid]

Next time, smaller clutches are better.

 

[PD-Riverman]

No easy way to fix your problem===you got some good suggestions from the others. Just for info----hatching does not have to be complicated like this----I am more than willing to share info on your future hatches----once you get this time past----if you are interested--so they go smooth or should with your future hatches. Good Luck