Need help figuring out what in the world I'm doing??!!

[Knowon Special]

Hey all,

Ok, I have several questions for which the answers seem most elusive! While I'm (sort of) sure they are on this site somewhere, I've searched and found answers to almost, sort of, but not really my questions . . . .

So, here goes . . .

Last summer I was given two "old, retired (they don't lay anymore), really, REALLY ugly hens" by my neighbor (the quote is hers) to help me out with my plague of grasshoppers . . .
Enter, stage left - Lucy & Ethel:


Well, in less than a week the two girls (feasting on grasshoppers and wheat fodder) were giving me regularly two eggs a day (12 - 14 eggs each week)
I'm guessing they really liked my grasshoppers and the 7-day-grown-over-my-bath-tub-trays of wheat fodder)


Anyway, after 3 weeks of terrific eggs, I decided I would get some younger girls to help them out (my husband & I both love eggs!), so I bought 3 RIR 19 week pullets and a RIR rooster,
Enter, stage right: Eeny, Minney, Mynie and (of course, the Roo) MO (we lost little Eeny in the Fall to a neighbors dog I've since explained to that neighbor that if they want their "pet" to live to a ripe old age they will keep him home since I shoot-to-kill predators that come onto my property. There would be no "warning shot" fired in his general direction to "scare" him away, there would not be another visit from me pleading with them to keep him home. If they failed to keep him home he would simply not come back some morning, and they would never really know. He has not been back)


After only about two weeks of "integration" they all became my little flock of (now, after losing Eeny) 5, 2 turken hens, 2 RIR hens and MO



( hard to get all 5 to pose in one pic, Minney stepped out of frame. Isn't MO a handsome boy?!! )

Sooooo, the 5 girls, and then the 4 girls laid eggs all last summer and fall and even laid quite heartily through the winter months - Nov/Dec 2013 through Jan/Feb/Mar/April 2014 - the remaining 4 girls producing approximately 22 - 28 eggs weekly (winter production fell only slightly to about 18 - 23 eggs per week).

Then, I wondered .. . . . is MO really doing his job, and if I gather the eggs each evening and refrigerate them, and we eat them, how would I ever know?? So I came to BYC and searched for "How do I recognize a fertilized egg?" and found your wonderful thread on here with pictures and everything!! So, I took one of yesterdays eggs out of the fridge, broke it into a saucer, and gently using two spoons to turn the yolk over, this way and that, I spotted it!! Almost exactly as your picture showed - (this IS your picture, by the way!)


SOOOOooo NOW I've decided to see if I can get the girls to finish the job they have begun . . .
Late last summer, one of my turken hens stopped laying and stayed all day and even the nights in one of the nest boxes for almost a week, I figured she had gone broody, even though at that time I was gathering the eggs daily and she wasn't really sitting on eggs (there was a golf ball in that nest). She sat on that golf ball for several days until I rousted her out and took the golf ball out, she went back to the nest a time or two but eventually went back to laying in the other two nests that the other hens were using.

I've begun by leaving the eggs (most of them) in the nests, 2 turken eggs and 2 RIR eggs, I have taken a small Sharpie pen and dated each egg (5/9, 5/10, 5/11 & 5/12) for the day it was laid. I figured this would help me more than the hens, because I'm pretty sure they don't yet read. . .


(yes, the nest boxes are those huge kitty litter tubs (they had like 35 lbs of cat litter in each) . . . on a budget here and the girls seem ok with me re-purposing these . . . )

So, ok NOW for the questions . . .

Am I doing this all wrong??
Will one or two of the hens eventually decide to SIT on these eggs?
How long should I continue to let eggs accumulate before I give up on any of them deciding to sit?
How many should I leave in the nest? What is too many eggs?
If I need to start taking some out each day (if the girls are still laying and adding to the nest daily), should I take out the older ones or the newer ones or will it matter?
IF they DO start to sit, will that hen continue to lay each day?
Since all 4 girls lay in these two nest boxes (yup, I've seen two in the same box at the same time. Seems they DO have their favorite spot, even though it looked awfully crowded in there! These are really big girls!)
should I move all the "date labeled" eggs to the nest where one has begun to sit, and hope that the other 3 will go to the 2nd nest box?
(I've now moved a 3rd nest box over closer to the two with the eggs)




OR am I whistling in the wind and this is simply NOT how it works?

I'd be appreciative of any answers anyone might be able/willing to provide . . . because IF this isn't how it's done, I need to start getting those 4 day old eggs somewhere ELSE LOL

Thanks in advance!

Knowon Special

Living her dream on 4 little acres in NE Texas, with her DH, 1 Quaker parrot, 2 indoor "rescued" cats (who graciously donated their empty litter tubs to the hens for nest boxes), 1 abandoned barn kitty, 1 Great White Pyranees "puppy" (she is 10 months old and about 90lbs), 1 miniature Jersey heifer (soon to go visit a handsome mini Jersey bull for "date night"), 1 guardian donkey, 8 dorper sheep and, of course, the Five O'Flock - 2 Turkens & 3 RIRs

 

[sellison]

My RIR's have never gone broody. I don't know much about naked necks. I think it would be best to wait until they go broody and then add eggs, then to hope they will become broody . But if you leave eggs, yes rotate them. Take out the oldest. They say up to 7 days is viable after that they loose their strength. She should be able to sit on 6- to 8 depending on the size of your hen. Good luck!

 

[happyhens1972]

If you want to encourage them to become broody but don't want to waste your eggs or let them become stale, then collect ALL eggs and leave either your afore mentioned golf balls or some dummy rubber or ceramic eggs in the nest. Then, if one becomes broody, you can leave her on the balls/dummies for a week or so to determine that she is definitely going to sit, then replace them with some real eggs at your own timing and convenience.

Once you give your broody the eggs you want her to actually hatch, if you are leaving her to hatch in the presence of your other hens, you will need to mark her eggs so that you know if others have been added afterwards. The other girls may well still lay in the broody's box and if so, she will simply pull them under her and brood them too but you do not want different aged eggs left under her so those need to be removed otherwise you'll end up with a staggered hatch and she will either neglect the already hatched babies in order to sit on the as yet unhatched eggs or she will get up to care for the chicks and abandon eggs that are just hours or days from hatching.

Personally, once I am pretty sure I have a determined broody, I always move her off to a seperate pen of her own so she can brood in peace, not have added eggs, and the chicks, once hatched, are not at risk from rats or the other chickens....but that is a matter of choice for each individual.

 

[donrae]

When I'm trying to tempt a hen to go broody, I use some sacrifice eggs. For my little bantam hens I use 8-10 of their eggs, so probably that many of your big hen's eggs for them. I mark all those eggs with a sharpie, I just draw a circle all the way around the egg so I can see it's marked no matter how it's laying. Then I just leave those eggs in the nest box. Each day I collect freshly laid eggs but leave the marked eggs there. Sometimes it works, but not always. Since you had a hen go broody before, it won't hurt to try. All you'll be losing is some eggs, and that's not usually a problem!

So, if/when I see a hen acting broody, I of course stalk her and watch her every move

but beside that, I check on them at night. For a hen to be really, truly broody to me, she has to spend at least two nights in a row on the nest. If she does that, the next day I toss all the eggs that were marked and give her the eggs I want her to hatch. Once I see one acting broody, I usually start saving up if there are specific eggs I want to hatch, over those 2-3 days I'm waiting to see if she's serious. But, on occasion, I've simply gone into the coop, picked up some eggs and put them under her.

If she's in with other birds, I also mark all the designated hatching eggs with a sharpie as above. Other hens will "donate" eggs to the broody, or she'll flat out steal them. Hatches have much better outcomes when all the eggs are started incubating at once. If she's been setting a week, and an egg gets added, it's only going to be 2/3 developed when the first eggs hatch, and that's just yucky. I don't like to mess with my hens much while they're brooding, so I just check under her every other day at night for unmarked eggs.

 

[Knowon Special]

Such terrific information, THANKS!!

Now! NEW question - I took the picture of the two nests with the eggs in them about the middle of this afternoon (5/12) and as you can see there are 11 eggs between the 2 nests, 7 in the left nest and 4 in the right - when I went out this evening to give the sheep, cow, donkey their evening snacks (everyone was already in the barn because it's been raining most all afternoon here) and the chickens were roosting on the top rail of the cows stall, I had decided to gather all the eggs, take them in and replace with the golf balls (as recommended).

Anyway, as I reached in the first one I pulled out was sticky, YUCK, there was a smushed broken shell and egg on a couple of the others . . . I pulled out 7 (it was the left nest with the sticky mess) and found that there were still 7, but 6 were dated and one was not - - - so my question is: Is it possible that 6 is about the most eggs to leave? That more than that means the hens don't have room to negotiate around and get situated to lay their egg and leave? Could the hen that came later and laid the last one have accidentally broken one while getting settled to lay her daily egg? OR Did it happen because the nest box is too small and that with more than 6 eggs in there they don't have room to get comfortable? Do I need to see about cutting away the top part of the nest box so that there could be more room for my girls to move around in? OR is it possible that the last hen in deliberately broke one? (have never had a broken egg in the nest like this before in a year)

Ideas? sPEC(K)ulations?

Also, I like the idea of the "sacrificial eggs" I can take 4 and leave them in the "main nest" and just pull new eggs out daily as I have been . . . then you suggest that IF one of the girls actually goes broody that I can watch her (especially at night) and once I'm convinced I can gather eggs for 2 or 3 days, mark them and pull all the old "sacrifice" eggs out and replace with the newly gathered ones, right? OOOH OOOO WHAT if I put 5 of the ones I pulled out, that were laid like yesterday and today (and dated) BACK out there in the favorite nest. THEN each day pull the oldest date (would be 2 days old) and date the new ones laid that day. . . always leaving the 4 - 5 newest in the nest? THAT way IF one finally gets broody, I would have them marked and could check to see if new, unmarked had been added and pull those out? letting her continue to sit on the ones that would have been "started" at the same time?

I really don't mind sacrificing eggs, leaving the same ones out there and just switching them out every couple of weeks (so they don't explode rotten) but would the above work do you think?

I keep remembering or thinking I read somewhere (might have been on BYC?) that a hen might lay an egg a day for 7 - 9 days before she actually begins to "sit" on them, and that once she does, and raises the temp of all the eggs to hatching temp that they will all still hatch within a few hours of one another 21 days later, regardless if the egg was the first in the nest to be laid on day one or the last on day 7 - 9 . . . am I mushing up my information? Anyway, the reason I asked is to determine how many days worth of eggs I might be able to place under her once I believe she has really gone broody.

Thanks again for all the terrific input - - Ya'll have given me several good thoughts to consider ways to make this as easy as possible on my hens, the (hopefully) chicks, the rest of the flock and ME

Knowon Special

 

[donrae]

Your way of dating them would probably work, it just seems more effort to me. I'm lazy

A full size hen can easily take up to a dozen eggs to brood.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

A few oif my big footed hens would always break an egg or 2 in the nest. Had nothing to do with the amount of eggs or the size of the nest box, just that the hen would actually step or stand on an egg.