Newbie

[drumstick diva]

If you put up good pictures of your rooster chances are we can ID his breed for you.

 

[hmbrown05]

Thanks so much for the warm welcome!

I will definitely post his pic sometime when I have a moment of free time (HA!) to figure out how, lol.

I do have a question on hatch rate of pullet eggs and what a normal clutch size would be. We had two hens go broody while we were out of town for a few weeks and I found them when we came home. One is sitting a nest of 16 and the other 22! That seemed like a lot of eggs! I was mostly pleased to see this as I was planning on letting nature take it's course (we have a lot of land and lots of people who want eggs and I have no desire to incubate eggs when I can have a hen do the work for me ), but it seemed awfully early to me especially since I hadn't even gotten even one egg out of one of the hens before we left!
The funny and sad note of that is the house sitter didn't even notice them missing at roosting time (the free range during the afternoon and I coop them at night

 

[gander007]

 

[Michael OShay]

Thanks so much for the warm welcome!

I will definitely post his pic sometime when I have a moment of free time (HA!) to figure out how, lol.

I do have a question on hatch rate of pullet eggs and what a normal clutch size would be. We had two hens go broody while we were out of town for a few weeks and I found them when we came home. One is sitting a nest of 16 and the other 22! That seemed like a lot of eggs! I was mostly pleased to see this as I was planning on letting nature take it's course (we have a lot of land and lots of people who want eggs and I have no desire to incubate eggs when I can have a hen do the work for me

), but it seemed awfully early to me especially since I hadn't even gotten even one egg out of one of the hens before we left!
The funny and sad note of that is the house sitter didn't even notice them missing at roosting time (the free range during the afternoon and I coop them at night

The hens are sitting on too many eggs, especially the one on 22 eggs. Hens need to be able to cover all of the eggs with their bodies, and she cannot possibly do so, so consequently the hatch rate will be very low. I've always limited the number of eggs in a clutch under a broody hen to around a dozen and with that number have usually gotten and 80-90% hatch rate. I would take some of those eggs out from under them (the ones on the perimeter) and reduce it too about 12. Since they've already been brooding for some time while you've been gone it might already be too late to get a high hatch rate, but it will still be better than leaving that many eggs under them.

 

[Dee Ann]

You might consider getting some of those eggs into an incubator. Too many eggs under a hen can cause all the embryos to die. She rotates them and they can get too cold. You can Foster the new hatchlings in with those they are already sitting on. They won't know the difference. I have done this and it works great. After you put the newbies in wait 24 hours and pull the rest of the eggs for the incubator.

 

[hmbrown05]

I don't have an incubator, wasn't planning on hatching eggs anytime soon, and while I am excited about the prospect of possibly having little peeps, I am by no means going to be upset (okay maybe a little ) if none of them survive so I will likely just let nature take it's course, I was main just curious if the pullet eggs would actually survive at all. They are tiny, maybe 2" long. Eleven of the eggs are from the leghorns who started laying earliest and a little bigger, and when I candles those this weekend, they are just about ready to pop . I was only using a little flash light in the barn so I couldn't see really well in the green eggs of the Americaunas other than they were incubating to some degree.

I guess we will see soon

Thanks for the info, though! I will definately limit the number of eggs they set from now on so we have a better chance of success.

 

[hmbrown05]

Oh and is it okay for the momma hens to eat the medicated chick starter or do I need to rig something to feed mom and then the littles?

 

[hmbrown05]

Was a late day at work, but when I went to check on the hens after dark this evening I found one adorable little peeping chick hiding under Mama