Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[bobbieschicks]

she has been on them only 4 days they look clear I can only see shadow of the yoke is this how they should be right now? Bella my silkie is sitting on them all the time have not seen her off of them. 2 eggs are white silkie & rooster is buff orpington hope chicks are cute other egg is a buff NN & same rooster.

someone wants to give me some eggs they have to ship em can I put these under my hen?

At four days it would still be difficult to see growth. Even by day seven it will be hard to know for sure unless your eggs are white and your candler is bright. I would not toss those eggs unless they are still completely clear on day 7. By day 7 you should see a very small blob growing inside even if you can't see the veining. Mir they are clear, then they are not fertile. By day 14 you would know for certain because the growth should take up a significant amount of the egg showing a much larger dark blob.

As far as adding new eggs, I would not. Until you are certain the old eggs are not viable, adding more eggs will only cause you problems with staggered hatch and a broody who will stop sitting on the second batch of eggs to take care of the chicks from the first batch. Make sure the first group of eggs are not viable before putting in the second set of eggs.

 

[bobbieschicks]

So today is day 7 or day six not sure how to count , but we got these eggs last Friday from a gal and I went home and put them right under her, tonight I candled and what I saw was some looked like day 6/7 but some looked like day 10 . Also no blood ring in three, but nothing in them nada so I tossed them. On three of the eggs I saw the big dark spot, and veins, but they were much bigger then some and do chickens roll around in the egg? So she had 8, a mysterious one showed up before I could mark them, as there became nine eggs lol , so we marked them all and I believe that one of the empty eggs with nothing in it was mine, ( no rooster ) I'm thrilled as the ones that were good so far are white eggs, does this mean I will have chickens that lay white eggs?

It's been my experience that the color of egg the chicken hatches out of determines the color of egg the pullet will lay with slight difference in color based on what rooster did the fertilizing. For instance...my white leghorn roo mated my green egg layer EE and they produced a pullet who lays large light blue green eggs. She was mated by a silky roo and they produced a pullet who lays smaller dark green eggs.

My white leghorn pullet hatched from white egg and lays a white egg. My Ancona hatched from a white egg and lays a white egg. You will probably have a pullet who lays a white egg unless the rooster was a dark egg layer breed, and then you may end up with a brown egg.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Thanks.
Would it be ok to candle again on day 17 or just leave them alone & keep my fingers crossed?

I don't think it would hurt, but I also don't know that you will glean anything from candling at such a late date. Almost the entire egg will be filled by then and it will be difficult to see thru the dark eggshell. I personally wouldn't do it.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Someone asked about putting shipped eggs under a broody and pretty much most of my broody experiences were with shipped eggs. It works fine. I've had better hatch rates when Topsy hatched her own eggs (4/5 hatched), but shipped eggs allowed me to get other breeds.

 

[trameghan]

I have looked and been unable to find an answer to my question so I'm going to post here: One of my hens is for sure broody but the problem is that when she leaves the nest to eat and poo she never sits back in the same nest box. I have been giving her a couple of eggs each day and she tucks them under her without fail. When she returns to the nest boxes she always picks one without eggs. Why will she sit on the eggs all day and sometimes overnight but then choose an empty nest box after her break? I have a place I can move her to but I am a bit hesitant since she is 2nd from the bottom chicken and I would also feel bad leaving her in a pen by herself. My other thought is to give her the 4 chicks I have coming in 2 weeks and see how she takes to them. Any suggestions or ideas?

 

[bobbieschicks]

I have looked and been unable to find an answer to my question so I'm going to post here:  One of my hens is for sure broody but the problem is that when she leaves the nest to eat and poo she never sits back in the same nest box.  I have been giving her a couple of eggs each day and she tucks them under her without fail.  When she returns to the nest boxes she always picks one without eggs.  Why will she sit on the eggs all day and sometimes overnight but then choose an empty nest box after her break?  I have a place I can move her to but I am a bit hesitant since she is 2nd from the bottom chicken and I would also feel bad leaving her in a pen by herself.   My other thought is to give her the 4 chicks I have coming in 2 weeks and see how she takes to them. Any suggestions or ideas? 

That is a good question. I don't know why she's doing it, but I would not consider giving her eggs to hatch until it gets resolved. Giving her day olds would seem a better solution for her. Putting her in a more confined area would help her stay on the correct nest but would require more effort on your part, like making sure she has food & water in there and letting her out to poo.

 

[Miss Lydia]

That is a good question. I don't know why she's doing it, but I would not consider giving her eggs to hatch until it gets resolved. Giving her day olds would seem a better solution for her. Putting her in a more confined area would help her stay on the correct nest but would require more effort on your part, like making sure she has food & water in there and letting her out to poo.

This is what I am doing, 2 of my bantams went broody in the goose house, in the most popular nest boxes of course, so after a week of seeing my big EE's going in and running the girls out and then stepping on their eggs to lay theirs I moved them to our lil coop which I have divided into to compartments. the only problem is that when I take them out daily for R&R they go start back to the goose house so I strand around and wait for them to get through and follow them into the goose house pick them up and carry them back to their nests once they see their eggs they settle right down. I does take more work but at least they can sit in private and don't have big hens stepping all over them.

Hatch day next Thurs

 

[Johnn]

That's the thing about chickens...sometimes they will all be getting along and suddenly one will just out of the blue peck another one. It's like they are saying, "Hey! Don't you forget who is the boss around here!"

Babs was above her friend though, her friend only challenged her because she was weak :/

 

[OHfarmerswife]

Ok thanks I will just try to be patient!

 

[6littlechicks]

well, my hatch has come to an end. I went the whole 24 days without candling in hopes of having a perfect outcome and after going beyond the 21 days I finally candles lay night and the eggs are not good. They must have died early on when the first one exploded Anyway, there's a happy ending, she took right to my 2 black australorps and my bantam mystery chick. They are so cute! See ya next time. Probably in June, lol. Good luck all, I'll be checking in for pics and I'll post one of my little adopted family.