feistychick
Songster
Thanks for the quick response - I have them sitting in a heating pad right now, hoping they'll warm up. Am I correct in assuming that if they don't move around after warming up, that they probably didn't survive her abandoning the nest?
Darn it!!!! I added damp paper towels around them on the heating pad, I hadn't thought of humidity. I have no idea why she just up and left them, she'd been sitting steady and no one was bothering her (including me). So bummed about these little peeps if they don't make it.... I hadn't planned on chicks, but thought I'd let her sit when the broody phase didn't wear off....then I started getting excited when she looked like she'd sit for the duration and the eggs were growing. If they don't make it, I hope she waits awhile before thinking about this again....
And I thought this was useful since you may not need the same moisture that an incubator does since the eggs are almost ready and Moma has been leaving oils on the eggs this whole time. [COLOR=0000CD]Quote: This question has been nagging at me for weeks, and I think I may have finally found the answer in an ancient book on incubation! The book mentions that eggs under broody hens lose less moisture than those in an incubator because oils from the hen's feathers rub off on her eggs and make less moisture escape. The author says that if you take an egg out of an incubator and a similarly aged egg from under a broody hen and drop them in a pot of water, the former has air bubbles escaping into the water while the latter doesn't. So, perhaps that's the difference? Comment by anna — late Tuesday morning, May 17th, 2011 comment 5 Hens do better than incubators at getting humidity right, because their clutch of eggs sits on the ground and the moisture needed for humidifying the eggs comes from the earth. Let your hens set on their eggs on the good old firma terra and you'll see how mother nature improves her hatch rate. ~ old farmer[/COLOR] [COLOR=000000]Also on a incubation thread I read someone say that they recorded Chicks hatching off youtube to encourage the incubator chicks to do the same thing.[/COLOR] [COLOR=000000]I really hope this works out for you[/COLOR] 
Thank for putting this link up! Have 6 eggs and they've been in the heating pad on low for several hours, they feel pretty warm. I've been checking occasionally but am not sure what the temp in there is (still hunting around for my meat thermometer, hopefully can check soon). Pretty sure that 6 will be a tight fit in my bra 
If I see any movement or anything, I'll be rigging something a little more predictable than the heat pad. I was hoping she'd change her mind and decide to finish the job, but she's been out playing all day and not showing any signs of broodiness now - darn bird. 4 weeks of broodiness and shut off like a switch 
I know it wasn't optimal conditions for hatching, but it still feels like I should have stayed up with it or something. I've left it in the "nest" all morning to see if it was just resting. Should I try to "help" it, in case it's just stuck? There's no movement at all from it - so I think the chick didn't make it. I know logically that the eggs were unlikely to make it, but I must confess that I got my hopes up when it was peeping last night 
