Eggsakly
Chirping
- May 5, 2015
- 200
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I have new babies in the hen house today! I'm so excited! I want to take photos to share but I don't want to upset mama anymore than I already have by peeking under her at the three new chicks I saw, one light gold color, one medium golden buff, and one mostly black like my avatar, who is, no doubt, the chick's biological mother.
One of my bantam buff Brahma hens decided to go broody right when she had been laying about a year - the second week of December. She wouldn't get off the nest, and the temperatures were unseasonably warm, so I gave her five eggs to sit on, three purebred bantam Wyandotte eggs, and two eggs that would be bantam Brahma-Wyandotte mixes. Two eggs remain in the nest.
Unfortunately, here near the end of incubation period, temperatures dropped to near zero and stayed there. I put a single heat lamp in my hen house - a large 12x14 building that is very well insulated, double windows, etc., for my Alaska climate, but everything in the room remained frozen.
I worried, as any grandmother would. Three days ago I quickly moved my broody from her nest box and placed her by herself in a large dog kennel with her own lamp, and a smaller cardboard box for nesting that is warmer for her and her eggs than the boxes in the coop. That stressed her out and it took her several minutes to settle back down and recognize that she and her eggs were still together, but she made it. I started feeding her separately and with some enhanced nutrition to help her make it through these past few days. She has decided that she actually likes eating straight from my fingers, and after three days of being fed she now waits for me to deliver every bite straight to her.
Fortunately, the weather has warmed up almost 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) since yesterday morning. With three babies out, I feel much more relaxed and happy to have new year's chicks.
Next time, however, if she insists on brooding in the winter, I'm setting something else up.
One of my bantam buff Brahma hens decided to go broody right when she had been laying about a year - the second week of December. She wouldn't get off the nest, and the temperatures were unseasonably warm, so I gave her five eggs to sit on, three purebred bantam Wyandotte eggs, and two eggs that would be bantam Brahma-Wyandotte mixes. Two eggs remain in the nest.
Unfortunately, here near the end of incubation period, temperatures dropped to near zero and stayed there. I put a single heat lamp in my hen house - a large 12x14 building that is very well insulated, double windows, etc., for my Alaska climate, but everything in the room remained frozen.
I worried, as any grandmother would. Three days ago I quickly moved my broody from her nest box and placed her by herself in a large dog kennel with her own lamp, and a smaller cardboard box for nesting that is warmer for her and her eggs than the boxes in the coop. That stressed her out and it took her several minutes to settle back down and recognize that she and her eggs were still together, but she made it. I started feeding her separately and with some enhanced nutrition to help her make it through these past few days. She has decided that she actually likes eating straight from my fingers, and after three days of being fed she now waits for me to deliver every bite straight to her.
Fortunately, the weather has warmed up almost 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) since yesterday morning. With three babies out, I feel much more relaxed and happy to have new year's chicks.
Next time, however, if she insists on brooding in the winter, I'm setting something else up.
