My chicken is brooding, anything to worry about?

[CyborgChickens]

So I found my missing chicken, Mrs. Cluckers, in a pile of hay bales. She was sitting on 10-12 eggs. I have no experience with brooding chickens and hatching chicks but, in forsight i should have seen this since i have a rooster. I am expecting buff ameracana's since Mrs. Clucker's is a Buff oringington and the rooster is an ameracana. any advise will be Awsome. Should i let her brood or get an incubater.

 

[Pyxis]

I would go ahead and let her brood Just make sure where she is is safe from predators. Broody hens make great mothers.

For your chicks, you won't be getting buff ameraucanas, at least in the sense that they are true ameraucanas but buff in color. They'll be mixes and you can expect to see some variety, both in color and possibly in comb type too. You'll probably also get some with muffs and some without. You could call them easter eggers, if you wanted, since easter eggers are just mixed breed birds that lay various colored eggs.

 

[CyborgChickens]

I think she's safe from predators because she's in the center of a pile of hay bales and I put food and water by her. Mrs. Cluckers disappered a couple weeks ago, we think she was brooding, but how long untill i have little chicks. I grabbed a couple eggs by mistake then left them on a table on my poarch and the wind blew the eggs on the ground and one of the eggs really cracked and the in side looked kinda like this.

The egg embreo was closest to the 2nd collem, 2nd row.

 

[Pyxis]

Can you go out tonight and candle her eggs? If other hens have been laying in her nest as she's been brooding, she could have eggs at various stages of development. This chart will tell you what you're looking for when you candle:

 

[CyborgChickens]

Sound's like a great idea but she dosen't leave her brooding spot and dosen't need to because i've put food and water by her. But thanks for the advise about candling the eggs. I'll do that.

 

[Pyxis]

You may want to change that so she has to get up - you don't want her pooping on the nest, and broodies are supposed to get up once a day to eat, drink, poop, and stretch their legs. Eggs should be candled at night anyway so you can see into them better so you'd really want to go out at night and pull them out from under her and candle them then. That's what I do, anyway.

 

[CyborgChickens]

Ok i'll change the set up so that Mrs. Cluckers has to get off her eggs to get food and water. Thanks for the advise.

 

[JodyJo]

just because you have a roo, doesn't make your hens go broody....they just do it...some breeds go broody more often then others.

 

[JodyJo]

Make sure when you handle the eggs, your hands are clean and washed...they are suseptible to disease. Yes, you need to move the food and water, so she is forced to get up and move around....21 days is normal hatch time, I have had broody hens walk off and leave eggs that are still cheeping inside...so make sure you check them...you can bring inside and put under a heat lamp, they will hatch out, then quick put them back under her with the other hatchlings...I just had to do this myself! She accepted them with no problem.

 

[CyborgChickens]

Can you give my any advise on how to candle the eggs? do i use a flashlight or a real candle? I just don't want to kill the little birds.