Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[OHfarmerswife]

My broody Gertie was sitting on eggs that were duds...50.00 down the drain
This is her second time brooding this year. First time she did great!
So far due to her incessant scratching she has managed to kill 3 chicks in a wk. They just disappear. I have removed most of the shavings as I think age is accidentally smothering them.
Tonight I removed her &put her back with the layers. Brought the babies inside, put in the brooder on the kitchen table. So sad to take away from.mom but these were expensive GFF cream legbar chicks.
Would rather have Gertie raise them, but didn't want to louder any more.

 

[Babyban]

I have bantams and I have three that went broody, and my other hens all started laying in there nests. I didn't mark the eggs so just left all the eggs there. I have had two chicks hatch and one mother hen is with them. But the other hens are still laying in with the others. I have about 10 eggs under one and 8 under the other. One of my hens is a bully and kicks out the broody just so she can lay in her nest. I am worried that when the chicks start to hatch that the bully hen will hurt the chicks. what should I do?

 

[Tomtommom]

My broody abandoned her eggs yesterday. Had to McGuyver a solution QUICK. Today we got the first chickie hatched.

I am afraid one died in the shell. The mom kicked the eggs around some. I moved the eggs to the incubator in the same position as I found them and this egg ended up pipping upside down. About a dime size patch of shell is gone, but there's been zero movement or noise in the egg since I found that it pipped upside down. I can see the beak but there's no breathing. I'm leaving it in my make-shift incubator to be sure.

I got one hatched, one pipped egg with a little cheepy beak poking out and one egg that peeps but doesn't have a pip yet. There's two more eggs that seem to have zero activity, but we'll wait and see.

3 out of 6 is good in my book, considering I had to rescue them.

 

[chickeneer45]

What kind of incubator is that?

 

[cowmommy2001]

tomtommom I LOVE your ingenuity with that emergency incubator set up!! That rocks!!

 

[Tomtommom]

What kind of incubator is that?

It's a plastic tub, some clothes hangers, a heat lamp and a thumb tack. I got an egg carton in the bottom with a dish towel and a small plastic cup with some water.

tomtommom I LOVE your ingenuity with that emergency incubator set up!! That rocks!!

Haha, if I had to come up with it before hand, I likely wouldn't have been able to. Amazing what our minds can do when we start freaking out.

 

[Tomtommom]

Ended up with:
- 2 live chicks, judging by feathers one boy and one girl.
- 1 undeveloped
- 1 died probably around the 16-18 day mark, egg had clear spots indicating bacterial contamination.
- 2 died after pipping. One was upside down when it pipped, likely suffocating it.. Sadly the mom had flipped the egg and I did not realize it when I moved it to the incubator. The other was too big for it's shell (the egg was smaller than the rest). Pipped internally, but never made it past that. Very sad, I heard it peeping yesterday morning. You just can't know when they're struggling inside the egg. It was only day 20 yesterday.

 

[frogz]

I've let my hen hatch her eggs and today is day 25...why aren't they hatching? I've always heard that hens will scoot bad eggs out of the nest, so why no chicks? Should I be worried? If they are bad and she hasn't been removing them from the nest, has anyone tried switching them out with chicks so the hen will stop sitting? I hesitate to open or remove any from her nest because she's done such a good job staying on her nest and I don't want to disturb her mothering. But at the same time, I don't want her to sit for so long on bad eggs. I'm worried about her getting malnourished after sitting with little food or water breaks for so long. Any advice is good advice. Thanks!

 

[Viollettt]

I just had one of my black australorps go broody for the second time a couple of days ago and decided to get her some eggs to sit and hatch. I don't have a rooster right now so I got some eggs. Four slikies and four barred rocks. I didn't realize how small the slikies eggs were going to be as I've never seen them before so my question is: Will they be ok under my broody with them all together? Is there anything special I should do for the silkies?

Thanks!

 

[Viollettt]

It's a plastic tub, some clothes hangers, a heat lamp and a thumb tack. I got an egg carton in the bottom with a dish towel and a small plastic cup with some water.


Haha, if I had to come up with it before hand, I likely wouldn't have been able to. Amazing what our minds can do when we start freaking out.

Brilliant! I love it.