My hen is'nt sitting on her eggs

[mudflaps]

My hen has hatched out four chicks but now is going back and forth from sitting on the other ten eggs to chasing after the little chicks. The eggs have gotten a little cold. what should i do?

 

[GitaBooks]

Sorry it took so long to respond.

How are they doing? Did you move them to a warm, humid spot?

 

[SmileChicks]

I would really like to hear this one. My broody hatched 4, and left the rest behind. Don't have an incubator, so have them under a heat light with a dampened paper towel over them. Yesturday was hatch day, so I still have hope. Candled them a bit ago and the cracks that are around the eggs seem to be in the wrong spot. Any advice would be awesome, as this is my first time hatching, and these are from my hens and a roo that mated before he crowed and we had to rehome him. Kinda makes them extra special.

 

[GitaBooks]

I would really like to hear this one. My broody hatched 4, and left the rest behind. Don't have an incubator, so have them under a heat light with a dampened paper towel over them. Yesturday was hatch day, so I still have hope. Candled them a bit ago and the cracks that are around the eggs seem to be in the wrong spot. Any advice would be awesome, as this is my first time hatching, and these are from my hens and a roo that mated before he crowed and we had to rehome him. Kinda makes them extra special.

Sounds awesome!

Make sure they are around 70% and 101-102 F constantly. Don't turn them. You can try carefully opening up the air hole of one, as you are unlikely to injure the chick or cut a major blood vessel this way.

Best of luck!

 

[SmileChicks]

Ok. Since there were no sounds or further movement, I gently removed pieces of shell starting at pip/crack. 2 were all yolk, only made it as far as veins. The other 3 had either quit or otherwise died before hatch stage. Momma must have purposely cracked them maybe smelled the icky smell better than we could. So for our very first hatch, 4 live fluffy butts that cane from my gens and former roo, cooked under my neighbor's broody. If my roo had crowed before mating, we would have not even had fertile eggs to try, so 4 is a blessing.

 

[mudflaps]

so i moved the chicks to somewhere warm in the day so the hen would concentrate on the eggs but she seems like shes abandoned them?

 

[GitaBooks]

so i moved the chicks to somewhere warm in the day so the hen would concentrate on the eggs but she seems like shes abandoned them?

When a hen is moved, she tends not to think of it as her nest again (my silkie will except anything, but not any of my other broodies). You can try moving her back to her old nest site with some fake eggs and putting the others in an incubator.

 

[mudflaps]

ya maybe i could try that but the nest is a ways off the ground so the chicks would fall and i do ot have an incubator

 

[mudflaps]

i just checked and she is sitting on them again but they have gotten cold a few times will they still hatch? They were supposed to hatch any day

 

[GitaBooks]

i just checked and she is sitting on them again but they have gotten cold a few times will they still hatch? They were supposed to hatch any day

Yes, they should still hatch if it is warm enough outside and the mother was not off more then an hour or so.

If you have a heat light you can make a home-made incubator.