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Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

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ochochicas said:
The broody I have has hatched eggs before  (in July).  She is the best broody anyone could hope for. She takes great care of the eggs and chicks.  She is extremely protective, but not overly aggressive.  I have no doubts that she is going to go back to her nest when I take her off.  I had another broody that was not a good mom and I had to watch her all the time.  One time the good broody stole all the chicks from the bad broody and I had to separate them all.  LOL   Each case is different so you have to do what works for you.   In my flock I have one older hen that can get rather pushy.  She is the only one that will peck at the broody until she gets off the nest.  Pushy hen then lays her egg in the nest while the broody stands outside the box and waits.  At least the eggs are being covered by someone when the broody is kicked off.  I candled the eggs on Saturday and they are all developing normally to date.  
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She sounds like she k owns what she is doing! My hen is an excellent setter so far, but we will have to see if she is a good momma. Fingers crossed! How long till yours hatch?
 
AnneInTheBurbs said:
She sounds like she k owns what she is doing! My hen is an excellent setter so far, but we will have to see if she is a good momma. Fingers crossed! How long till yours hatch?
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They are due to hatch on Saturday. I'm taking more of a hands off approach with this batch. My broody totally knows what to do, although she will not leave the nest unless I take her off. Her first time she was broody for a long time and I worried about her health so I started making her get off the nest. In the whole time she was broody I only ever saw her leave once on her own, and it was about 95 degrees out so she must have figured the eggs could stay warm by themselves for a while.

I'm so jealous that you have some Cubalayas! I'd love to get one but no one in my area has them. That is OK thought since I'm trying to focus on my olive eggers. ;)
 
bumpercarr said:
Question 1: She's probably being sneaky, but it wouldn't hurt to give her some high protein food right in front of her, i.e. scrambled eggs, meal worms, etc. along with some water. Some will worry about other hens "stealing" their nest and won't get off for fear of losing the nest.

Question 2: Never heard of that before. I leave my broodies with the males, most of the males are very proud of their babies and don't bother them or the broody. If others seem to be bothering her, you can move her, but that makes it harder for her to reintegrate herself and her babies back into the flock.
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ok ill put some food next to her shortly she's is on day 6 so I'll keep an eye on her weight, but that is good to hear those **** roosters piss me off I can't believe my dad wants me to keep them all
 
CandylandRanch said:
Sloshy eggs.. I haven't heard this term and when i candled a few days back I found it a little odd how one kind of sloshed about as I rotated the egg.. This means the baby is dead? I thought something was wrong..
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What you are seeing when you turn the egg, is normal for a raw egg or a chick in early development (but not after the first week or so, as the chick should be filling up the egg more). The egg yolk is suspended by the 2 "bungee" cords called the chalaza. These fibrous cords keep the yolk centered in the egg and cause the yolk to always rotate so that it remains at the top of the egg, closest to the hen, whenever the egg is turned. The hen turns the egg to keep the yolk from sticking to one side while the chick is growing (which would be a disaster), but the yolk always ends "sunnyside up" keeping the developing embryo nearest the hen's heat source during the most crucial stage of early growth.

As the embryos develop, they fill up more and more of the shell so that the don't "float to the top" any more. Instead the chick will move and turn inside the shell until a few days before hatch the chick turns into the hatch position so that the head is nearest the air cell (fat end) and their beak tucked under their wing and tipped so that the egg tooth is close to the shell for pipping.

I'm not sure who you quoted with "sloshy" eggs, but if it was me you quoted, then I am referring to when the egg has decayed, and some gasses build up inside...when you gently shake the egg there is a distinct "slush/thud" sound and feel...a sure sign you have a rotten egg. (All eggs slosh if you shake them fairly hard...it is one way to tell the difference between a hard boiled egg and a raw one...try it sometime to see the difference.)

I only observed this at the end of hatches as I never shake a developing egg for obvious reasons. I only do that if the eggs are overdue and all I am seeing is dark when I candle. That is when it is hard to tell if I've got a live chick who is a late bloomer, a failed hatch chick dead in the shell, or a blob of mess. Since a chick fills up the whole shell such that it does not slosh like the raw egg, you won't feel anything move in the shell if you shake it similar to the feel of a hard boiled egg. .I'm not sure if the egg is a quitter that has putrified or something never developed...I tend to think a chick had formed, grew about half way, and then died to create that kind of sloshy mass. If you open the egg (carefully inside a baggie), it will pop and explode dark green gunk.

You can see the parts of an egg and the develop of the chick from this video (a favorite I share with my students when I have got chicks developing).

Lady of McCamley
 
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DOUBLE POST: to cover my friends in both brooding threads

I picked up my new broodies yesterday!!!! (To replace my poor hawk-loss Oma-San, my beloved main broody for the last 4 years).

Here they are.
wee.gif


A veteran broody Silkie of 4 1/2 years, given as a gift from a fellow chicken lover so she can have a forever home doing what she loves most...BROODING....She has a very regal attitude towards the 2 little hand maids that I picked up yesterday, so I've dubbed her The Queen Mum (especially with the hat she wears!)




and the 2 little bantam Cochins....Rosie and Mimsy...3 to 4 months old (closer to 4 mos. the owner and I think)...from a very, very broody Buff Cochin mom and a Mille Fleur Cochin dad.


Mimsy in front...Rosie (short for Rosemere is hard to see in the back)....so

 

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