Moving broodies nest??? **PICS**

[Echoes]

Is it okay to move a brooding hens nest to another spot? My hen was sitting on 14 eggs underneath a this dresser we have next to the coop. She just dug alittle bit to get under there and decided thats where she wanted to nest. I wanted to move her because when it rains they will be soaked, and predators can get in there and take them.

I moved her and her eggs to this big crate we have, filled it with hay, food/water, a llamp (for heat) and then closed it up. She seems to be sitting on it but will it last? She is unable to go outside because she is completely enclosed inside, but she wasn't leaving her old spot to go out anyway.

Also, and this is VERY IMPORTANT, since she has 14 eggs, does that mean the first one was layed 14 days ago? Because she only lays 1-2 a day, or is this some kind of cycle where she just layed like 10 in one day? I really want to know if I should expect them this weekend... or later.


Here's where she WAS:

Here's where she IS now:

 

[peaceful]

She should be ok in the new location if she is taking to the nest.
She would have laid her normal one egg a day until she had enough eggs together to sit on. Possibly other hens laid in her nest as well if they had access to it. They will do that. So the eggs could be fresher than 14 days if you have more than one hen that had access to the nest.
That's why it is best to separate the broody hen because other hens will come in and lay even after the broody hen has been sitting on the nest, and then the broody one may move over onto the newer eggs, getting off the older ones.

 

[Echoes]

Ok, thank you!

The others didn't have access to her nest either, she is very tiny and the only one who could squeez underneath that dresser.

So I should be expect some this weekend, since the very first egg was laid 14 days (2 weeks) ago, right?

 

[peaceful]

Just saw your photos and edited message. Cute hen!
Usually the hen will lay an egg then go away and the next day lay an egg and go away etc. until she has as many as she wants to sit on. Then she starts sitting on them and they should all hatch after about 21 days. The eggs laid earlier waited in stasis until she started incubating them.
If she started sitting on her eggs, and then other hens came in and laid more eggs which she incorporated into her nest the you could have eggs at different stages of development. What will happen with that situation is that after the first one(s) hatch she will still wait on top of the rest of the eggs to hatch out the others, but if after about two days the others haven't hatched she will get of the nest to get food and water for her and the hatched chicks. If you have an incubator handy you could put any unhatched eggs left in it (if she abandons eggs after some chicks have hatched) and try to give them more of a chance to hatch out.

 

[RioLindoAz]

I think she should be fine.





Happy hen hatching!
~Rio

 

[Echoes]

Alright, great advice. I will definetly use the incubator if needed, like you said.

And yeh, she's adorable. Extremely tiny though. We were all shocked when we found out that she was brooding that many eggs.

 

[Chicky Tocks]

Nice move! That's a much better setup than where she was. It looks to me like she approves.

 

[peaceful]

Oops. I was writing when you were. No I wouldn't expect them that soon. As I mentioned usually the hen keeps laying eggs in the nest each day (and the eggs wait there in stasis) until she has enough eggs together, and then she stops laying eggs and just sits on them to incubate them. That's when the incubating process starts. So the eggs should hatch approximately 21 days after she started sitting on them, not 21 days after the first one was laid. If you have no idea when she would have started sitting on them (likely at the end of having laid all those eggs) then you will just have to wait and see. It will be 21 plus or minus two days from the time she started incubating on the eggs.
(This is all assuming that there is a rooster around so that they are fertilized eggs. Otherwise of course they will not hatch, she has just gone broody on her infertile eggs)

 

[Echoes]

Yeh, we were worried at first she wouldn't like it. She just sqauked and squaked for the first few minutes. Then saw the food/water and went crazy on that, thennn she noticed her eggs and started nesting again.

The reason she started nesting under the dresser in the first place is because she noticed we would take her eggs everyday, so she got wise and went somewhere where we wouldn't noticed. For the first few days shes was under there we had no idea where she was. We thoughht maybe an animal had gotten her, we were very upset. Until one day I was near the coop throwing bread around for the others, and to my suprise, she came running out from under there for some bread.

 

[Echoes]

Ok. Well they are definetly fertile. I just incubated a bunch from her and they were all fertile.

So, I think she started sitting on them 3, 4, maybe 5 days ago. So I guess it's safe to say it's probobly going to be over 2 weeks before they start hatching. Ah... this wait is gonna kill me!