My first broody!** Daily Updates* Post Hatch Events
- Thread starter gryeyes
- Start date
It amazes me how they can move eggs around. I'm following this to live vicariously through you. I want a broody!
I love following this post as I am secretly hoping to have a broody and my own chicks this year!!!
- Thread starter
- #25
Day Nine
Minerva is still keeping Buffy company at night, but she is "downstairs" and waiting at the A-Frame door in the mornings for me to unlock it and let her out. She returns to lay an egg later in the day, but doesn't hang around, nor does she mess with any eggs already in the nest she's able to use (next to Buffy's). And Rebecca is still laying her pale green egg there. Somebody has made the adjacent nest box more "nesty" by hollowing out a deeper depression in the pine shavings it holds.
I won't check under Buffy to count eggs until I get home from work this evening, but there were still only the original 3 last night. I worry about her brooding in there, in this heat. At least the A-Frame gets shade on ONE of its long sides all day long!
I'm pleased she is depositing that horrible, broody-poop thing in the run, and not in the coop! However, my dachshund Zorro heads straight for it. GACK! Dogs are disgusting. I try to get to it before he does, but the silly girl doesn't leave it in the same place every day.
So, ummm..... should I candle the eggs, or just wait to see if they hatch on schedule, the 27th or thereabouts? I don't know HOW to candle eggs, and I don't think I have a really good flashlight with a strong enough beam. I usually use mine just for safety's sake during night treks through the yard. (Another reason Buffy should drop that bomb in the same place every day, y'know??)
I'm also afraid I'd learn something sad if I candled the eggs. This way, not knowing, I can stay eggscited for the next two weeks.
Day Nine Evening Addendum
There are now FOUR eggs under Buffy. She was a little testy when I pulled one out to check it. It was one of the original eggs I marked, so I tucked it back under her. She settled back down. Not gonna bother her any more today.
Tomorrow, I intend to snatch all the eggs out from under her at once, to take any "new" eggs away. I just don't want to poke around and unsettle her all that much.
I might pop some ice cubes into her bucket o' water tomorrow morning. The water temperature right now is fairly cool, as the sun gets behind the trees to shade the A-Frame coop around 2 or 3 PM.
She isn't eating very much, though. I have one of those long, metal, chick feeders about six inches in front of her nest box.
Luckily, Buffy is QUITE a "fluffy" girl. Like me - I'se not fat, I'se fluffy!
Minerva is still keeping Buffy company at night, but she is "downstairs" and waiting at the A-Frame door in the mornings for me to unlock it and let her out. She returns to lay an egg later in the day, but doesn't hang around, nor does she mess with any eggs already in the nest she's able to use (next to Buffy's). And Rebecca is still laying her pale green egg there. Somebody has made the adjacent nest box more "nesty" by hollowing out a deeper depression in the pine shavings it holds.
I won't check under Buffy to count eggs until I get home from work this evening, but there were still only the original 3 last night. I worry about her brooding in there, in this heat. At least the A-Frame gets shade on ONE of its long sides all day long!
I'm pleased she is depositing that horrible, broody-poop thing in the run, and not in the coop! However, my dachshund Zorro heads straight for it. GACK! Dogs are disgusting. I try to get to it before he does, but the silly girl doesn't leave it in the same place every day.
So, ummm..... should I candle the eggs, or just wait to see if they hatch on schedule, the 27th or thereabouts? I don't know HOW to candle eggs, and I don't think I have a really good flashlight with a strong enough beam. I usually use mine just for safety's sake during night treks through the yard. (Another reason Buffy should drop that bomb in the same place every day, y'know??)
I'm also afraid I'd learn something sad if I candled the eggs. This way, not knowing, I can stay eggscited for the next two weeks.
Day Nine Evening Addendum
There are now FOUR eggs under Buffy. She was a little testy when I pulled one out to check it. It was one of the original eggs I marked, so I tucked it back under her. She settled back down. Not gonna bother her any more today.
Tomorrow, I intend to snatch all the eggs out from under her at once, to take any "new" eggs away. I just don't want to poke around and unsettle her all that much.
I might pop some ice cubes into her bucket o' water tomorrow morning. The water temperature right now is fairly cool, as the sun gets behind the trees to shade the A-Frame coop around 2 or 3 PM.
She isn't eating very much, though. I have one of those long, metal, chick feeders about six inches in front of her nest box.
Luckily, Buffy is QUITE a "fluffy" girl. Like me - I'se not fat, I'se fluffy!
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I've had a hen go broody twice. The first time she sat on and hatched only one egg. The next time I let her have five. One went bad; I could tell because there was moisture on the shell one day, and on the next day when I took her off the nest for her poop/ramble, the egg stuck to her and exploded when I set her out in the run. Disgusting smell. One egg was crushed in the nest somehow, and she rolled it out, so I tossed it. Of the three remaining eggs, one chick shrink-wrapped. Apparently the broody picked most of the shell off but the chick couldn't get through the membrane, so I culled it. The two remaining hatched just fine. I never candled any of them; if I'm going to let the broody do it, I let her do it all.
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- Thread starter
- #27
Day Ten
Crud. I got up too late to spend time doing more than just fill feeders and check waterers and count heads. (I was "short" a chicken last night, couldn't find Minerva ANYWHERE. But she was there this morning... I'm guessing she slept overnight in the blackberry bushes inside the extended portion of the chicken run.) Anyway, I didn't take the time to do more than say Howdy to Buffy. No time to pull out the eggs, keep the un-marked one and put the original 3 back.
There was a white egg (either Minerva's or Millicent's) in the middle of the other half of the upstairs portion of the A-Frame coop. It was NOT in the adjacent nest box, where they usually lay them. Odd. It would have been harder for Buffy to move it from the next door nest box all the way over there, and over a 2x4 cross-piece, than it would have been to pull it into her nest box. Can't imagine she moved it there. Perhaps whichever M & M laid it just thought it was wiser to take care of business further away from that formerly nice Buffy who is now all nasty about "her" nest box.
I'm glad somebody else reported not candling eggs. I was worrying I would be doing something Horrifically Wrong by not wanting to follow whatever rule that might have been, with regard to dealing with broody pullets! I do want to do what's right, but not what's scary or icky or beyond my skill set.
Day Ten - Evening Update
I removed the 4th egg - Buffy was not very happy about me actually pulling eggs out from under her. I put the original 3 back beneath her tummy. She glared at me the entire time, fluffed up and chittering in anger. Just one not-very-hard peck when I first pushed my hand into her nest.
That 4th egg was one of Lacey's, I think.
Instead of the four a day I've been finding since Buffy went broody, there were five eggs today. (Not counting yesterday's egg added to Buffy's clutch.) Wonder if that's because it was much cooler weather than it has been for the past several days??
Crud. I got up too late to spend time doing more than just fill feeders and check waterers and count heads. (I was "short" a chicken last night, couldn't find Minerva ANYWHERE. But she was there this morning... I'm guessing she slept overnight in the blackberry bushes inside the extended portion of the chicken run.) Anyway, I didn't take the time to do more than say Howdy to Buffy. No time to pull out the eggs, keep the un-marked one and put the original 3 back.
There was a white egg (either Minerva's or Millicent's) in the middle of the other half of the upstairs portion of the A-Frame coop. It was NOT in the adjacent nest box, where they usually lay them. Odd. It would have been harder for Buffy to move it from the next door nest box all the way over there, and over a 2x4 cross-piece, than it would have been to pull it into her nest box. Can't imagine she moved it there. Perhaps whichever M & M laid it just thought it was wiser to take care of business further away from that formerly nice Buffy who is now all nasty about "her" nest box.
I'm glad somebody else reported not candling eggs. I was worrying I would be doing something Horrifically Wrong by not wanting to follow whatever rule that might have been, with regard to dealing with broody pullets! I do want to do what's right, but not what's scary or icky or beyond my skill set.
Day Ten - Evening Update
I removed the 4th egg - Buffy was not very happy about me actually pulling eggs out from under her. I put the original 3 back beneath her tummy. She glared at me the entire time, fluffed up and chittering in anger. Just one not-very-hard peck when I first pushed my hand into her nest.
That 4th egg was one of Lacey's, I think.
Instead of the four a day I've been finding since Buffy went broody, there were five eggs today. (Not counting yesterday's egg added to Buffy's clutch.) Wonder if that's because it was much cooler weather than it has been for the past several days??
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Glad you found your missing girl.
My hens have moved fake eggs to other nest boxes. In order to do that, they have to get them up and over the wood lip of the box. So it is possible.
Candle or don't candle, it doesn't change anything. But it is neat to see the chick developing inside the shell, especially once they start moving.
My hens have moved fake eggs to other nest boxes. In order to do that, they have to get them up and over the wood lip of the box. So it is possible.
Candle or don't candle, it doesn't change anything. But it is neat to see the chick developing inside the shell, especially once they start moving.
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- #29
Quote:
I'm willing to candle eggs the NEXT go 'round. As a matter of fact, I recently bought a Brinsea Mini Advance incubator, and expect to become all obsessed with those processes before too long.
This first broody session of Buffy's (and MINE, too!) is just ...... oh, I dunno, it thrills me and yet it makes me nervous, too. If nothing hatches, then it was a great learning experience. If something hatches, then WAHOO! I'm a Gramma!
...whoops.. well....you know what I mean.
I'm willing to candle eggs the NEXT go 'round. As a matter of fact, I recently bought a Brinsea Mini Advance incubator, and expect to become all obsessed with those processes before too long.
This first broody session of Buffy's (and MINE, too!) is just ...... oh, I dunno, it thrills me and yet it makes me nervous, too. If nothing hatches, then it was a great learning experience. If something hatches, then WAHOO! I'm a Gramma!
...whoops.. well....you know what I mean.
How do you make sure she eats and drinks? I have a silkie/cochin cross that went broody on Saturday (her 2nd time going broody). Since I have a roo this time, I have 4 eggs under her, but we haven't seen her move off the nest at all. I have a waterer about 6 inches away and I put crumbles in her nest but she won't eat it. She ate a little scratch this morning. There haven't been any pops in the nest. Do they just know to eat and drink? I don't want her to get dehydrated.
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