No idea if they are fertile

[KatsCountryCritters]

I have 5 hens and 1 is a tiny little bantam. Guess which one has gone broody! She of course is sitting on mostly regular chicken eggs. She has 2 of her own in there. Silly me forgot to count how many there are total. There are at least 10. She can't fit over all the eggs because she is so tiny. Occasionally my silky mix will sit with her.

I'm wondering how many will actually hatch. She's been sitting on them at least a week and a half. I don't know exactly how long, because my daughter is the one who always collects the eggs. We decided a week and a half ago to let Aster (broody hen) sit on the eggs and see what happens. I've tried candling them but I can't see anything. They are heavier than the other eggs I collect. There is a large air sack in all of them on the large end of the egg. Any opinions and/or advice? Most of the eggs are light brown.

 

[KatsCountryCritters]

16 eggs
1 tiny bantam mama

 

[Anna Mouro]

She probably should only have around 12.

 

[chick lovers]

Thats a lot of eggs for a little chicken. Lol.

You said that another chicken occasionally sits with her? I had that happening and I figured out after five days of this that she was actually laying eggs and my broody was collecting them and putting them under her. In all we ended up with 16 eggs like yours has and they were progressing fine when she accidentally stepped on one. I didnt figure this out until about a day later. The eggs, which were almost fully formed it was sad

. So candle them a lot and check under her once a day and try to keep her from braking them as she goes back on. Good luck!!

 

[KatsCountryCritters]

Something interesting happened. Every time we would go check she would have less and less eggs. Finally she was down to 10. She was kicking them out and the other chickens were eating the dropped ones. But we have another hen that keeps laying in there with her, and laying eggs. So the numbers went back up. The orriginal eggs should have hatched 2 weeks ago. We candled them today and heard peeping! So we took the eggs that looked empty and broke them open inside. Most of them were completely empty, fresh eggs. 2 were nasty rotten stinky (they were hers). Here is a picture of three in different developmental stages. We left her 6-8 eggs (we forgot to count). Hopefully a few will hatch. here are the photos of the 3 eggs that were developing. Not sure if they would have made it into full chicks though. I'm not quite sure how far along each one is. I know one had definitely started to go rotten though.

 

[KatsCountryCritters]

2 hatched last night! Now my speckled Sussex has kicked her and the chick out to a different nest and is brooding on the remaining eggs. I think I'm going to move the chicks into a brooder and ham raise them so they'll be friendly and I won't have to worry about my layers eating chick feed.

 

[KatsCountryCritters]