Odds of survival on prolonged staggered hatch with broody (Small flock)

[MrsEarthern]

My trouble maker momma and the biddies so far.



I am in a pickle.
Some background: I currently have a small flock of four hens and a rooster (Nightshade). My roo and one of my hens (Lavender) are 2+ years old, and were raised to 20 weeks free ranging with their flock before I got them. In Spring last year, I raised some black sex-links, and we ended up with three sex-links and the pair from my original flock.

My pickle: Three ~1-2 week gaps in development. Three clutches? One broody hen.

I believe that the coop was staying warm enough that it didn't matter that they weren't sitting overnight in mid-May, and that my hens were stealing eggs back and forth for a week or so before I 'let' them go broody the weekend of May 25th.
That explains the bloody broken egg I found early on and the unmarked partially developed one we found among the eggs collected that same week.

I think the oldest (White chick) is a survivor from the earliest broody attempt, these two from another hens attempt.
Based on candling, about a dozen eggs appear to be from consecutive days in early June and are developmentally where the hatch momma's (Lovey) clutch should be, with over half looking like they will hatch within the next day or so.

There are also ~6 eggs that are much less developed, I'd say less than day 16.

My other hens are disinterested/tolerant of the chicks, and will try to sit on the eggs in the nest if Lovey is absent.

The rooster is very proud of his chicks, and was keeping the others away from them while I was out there today. He forced open the door to crow over them this morning, and I can't repair it in the next few days.

Since I can't keep them separate, I will keep collecting the newly laid eggs and hopefully when Lovey abandons the nest in the next few days, one of the other hens will swoop in for the next batch.

If it works out, that'll be one roo and four hens, plus one month, equals 21 hatchlings.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Hello, I have the same thing going on with my 3 broodies, some are a tiny bit younger than the others and, like you, I'm worried that the mamas won't keep laying on her young eggs once the older ones hatch (or that she WILL keep laying on her eggs until all are hatched.)

Since I can't keep them separate, I will keep collecting the newly laid eggs and hopefully when Lovey abandons the nest in the next few days, one of the other hens will swoop in for the next batch.

She might not abandon the nest because she will take her chicks out of the coop to explore, and then at night every single night until they are old enough, she will go to the nesting box with her chicks to sleep. Hens usually fully abandon the chicks and let them fend for themselves when the chicks are about a month old or older (in my experience.)
Do you have an incubator that you can put the young eggs in??
Read @NatJ's post in my thread. It is very helpful.

 

[MrsEarthern]

Hello, I have the same thing going on with my 3 broodies, some are a tiny bit younger than the others and, like you, I'm worried that the mamas won't keep laying on her young eggs once the older ones hatch (or that she WILL keep laying on her eggs until all are hatched.)

She might not abandon the nest because she will take her chicks out of the coop to explore, and then at night every single night until they are old enough, she will go to the nesting box with her chicks to sleep. Hens usually fully abandon the chicks and let them fend for themselves when the chicks are about a month old or older (in my experience.)
Do you have an incubator that you can put the young eggs in??
Read @NatJ's post in my thread. It is very helpful.

I don't have an incubator, but have the ability to make a DIY or impose on a friend.

My oldest chick is a week old on Sunday, and the hen hasn't been the best momma to the two from mid-week. She has been taking the oldest down into the run and the only reason she's going into the coop at night is because I have made the run less comfortable. I have had to put the chick up into the coop at night because it can't climb the ramp.
I am thinking about putting a nest back in one of the lower boxes in the run for Lovey and her brood once she takes them down again.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

I don't have an incubator, but have the ability to make a DIY or impose on a friend.

My oldest chick is a week old on Sunday, and the hen hasn't been the best momma to the two from mid-week. She has been taking the oldest down into the run and the only reason she's going into the coop at night is because I have made the run less comfortable. I have had to put the chick up into the coop at night because it can't climb the ramp.
I am thinking about putting a nest back in one of the lower boxes in the run for Lovey and her brood once she takes them down again.

Maybe you can purchase a kiddie pool and cut out a hole in the side to make an opening and then put it in the run and fill it with pine shavings? It depends on how big your run is though.

 

[MrsEarthern]

I have cleaned up the run over the last few evenings, and Lovey wanted to stay down with her chicks last night but I put the chicks into the coop and she followed them up an settled on the eggs.

She's been sitting until afternoon, but one of my other hens lays an egg and sits on the nest for an hour or two afterwards. I removed three rotten/undeveloped eggs, and a couple of new eggs. We are down to 15 eggs in the nest, with ~10 due to hatch today.

Would it be better to just wait and see if Lovey accepts them?
Could I trick my passive-broody into sitting them these final days; and if so, would she then be a bad brooder in the future?

 

[NatJ]

Would it be better to just wait and see if Lovey accepts them?
Could I trick my passive-broody into sitting them these final days; and if so, would she then be a bad brooder in the future?

I don't know about your other questions, but I am pretty confident about this one:
it will not make her a "bad brooder" in the future if you do that now.

 

[MrsEarthern]

Update: My hen Lovey and her three chicks have been down in the run since yesterday. I candled the eggs last night and removed another rotten one. It seems that two hatched overnight or were cracked this morning; one is gone, and the other was also passed in it's shell.
Of the 13 remaining eggs, three had been set aside by the hens, the last nine are filthy.
I have removed the nine eggs for now, and set the last three in my passive broody nest after collecting her eggs. I am hoping these are the least developed eggs, as they cooled off overnight.

I've been told not to let hatching eggs get wet, so assume that I can't do anything with the messed eggs anyway?

 

[NatJ]

I've been told not to let hatching eggs get wet, so assume that I can't do anything with the messed eggs anyway?

The usual reasons for keeping eggs dry:

Do not submerge developing eggs in water, because you do not want to drown the chick.

If you have clean eggs, keep them dry. You don't want to remove the bloom (which can help keep out bacteria and dirt), and you don't want to add or spread bacteria.

But some people do wash and sanitize eggs they intend to hatch, and some of them have plenty of healthy chicks hatch. So washing eggs can be done in a way that works.

If you do clean the eggs, you might not want to put formerly-messy eggs in the same nest or incubator with ones that are in good shape, because they probably still have extra bacteria still, so it may not be worth trying to clean them unless you have another broody or a spare incubator.

But if you would otherwise discard the messy eggs, you don't have much to lose by trying to clean them. I might try wiping them with a damp cloth, rather than running them under water or submerging them in water, because of worries about drowning the chicks inside.

 

[MrsEarthern]

But if you would otherwise discard the messy eggs, you don't have much to lose by trying to clean them.

I rinsed them briefly in very warm water, wiped them clean, and dried them then replaced them in the original nest.

One of the three that got moved into the other broody nest is currently hatching, but still has a lot of veins on the inner membrane.

 

[MrsEarthern]

Well, we have five healthy chicks. Two of the three eggs hatched and the nine rinsed eggs have been abandoned in the nest.
Hatch momma Lovey has taken on all five hatchlings, the oldest two sometimes ride on her back, the smallest two pop out from under her wings.

My rooster, Nightshade, is a great daddy so far. He sat just inside the coop door as his babies hatched and cooed and crowed over them, but kept enough distance so they didn't imprint on him. Once they were running around he bopped them on the head a couple of times, but he also drops food or scratches and calls them over.

A 5 out of 7 survival rate isn't terrible for a staggered hatch, but I also removed ~6 rotten eggs.

If I could start over, I think I would have made my "hospital" earlier, and gotten Elvira into the hammock sooner- so that I could have allowed each of my hens to sit on ~6 eggs each when they initially went broody.