Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[Miss Lydia]

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S, you do what you feel is best for your hen and chicks, if you move her at night along with the eggs that haven't hatched she will most likely accept it. Let us know how it goes..

 

[Miss Lydia]

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I remember that too, something about putting ducklings and chicks together and the water bowl was too large and the chicks drowned. thats sad.

 

[perchie.girl]

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I remember that too, something about putting ducklings and chicks together and the water bowl was too large and the chicks drowned. thats sad.

Yeh I lost a couple of chicks in a plain old water bowl once. Then I made chicken wire lids for the waterers. I use dog water bowls with float valves. I bend the chicken wire around the edges and down into the water about a quarter inch. Makes for wet feet and gives the chicks to scramble out on.

Wont work for ducks though.

 

[Gold Griffin Chicken Mom]

I use those plastic packing box lids to feed the chickens on.

For Dark Cornish Mama and her crew, I place chick starter on the uphill end. Water is gently poured onto the downhill end. The babies could dance in the water and it wouldn't come up to their little knees!

I, too, have been worried about chicks falling into a drink container and drowning. So far that has been avoided around here. I would have sworn that my adult hens were trying to fall through the ice this past Winter. Stand on the ice and drink through the hole I had broke. Arrgh! Anyway, to protect the stupid I switched to more shallow containers. The only reedeming quaility to using a large washtub forthe hens is: when full of water, all the girls can perch on the side and drink without flipping it over. When the water gets low, they stand in the water up to their tail feathers to drink. I guess they are "cooling it", lol.

 

[bburn]

My SIL came running in earlier and had been out to check on my broody. I started towards the front door while my DH went after the golf cart.....am still non weight bearing on my foot. I rolled out the front door on my knee walker, climbed in the golf cart and my DH drove me right up to the broody coop.

We had an egg that she wanted me to see. I think it had pipped and the broody stepped on it getting up. HOWEVER, my SIL said while she was looking a piece of the egg shell popped of. And HOWEVER again.....the shell was dented in right where the pip was. Either it will make it or it won't. Knowing what it is supposed to look like after two spring incubator hatches I was pretty concerned.

It will either make it or it won't....but I am sad right now. Maybe we will get up in the morning to all the eggs hatched!!! You just hate it when something happens this late in a hatch. She has been such a good broody too.....

more tomorrow......

 

[Fuffy]

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

I was good ... I did the deed to my boy buffies.

Such a shame, but it had to be done.

I can't have another cockerel and the potential home for one of them fell through.

And I needed to do it before I got too attached to them!!!

Sooooo ...

Does anyone out there watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Obviously one of my little girls will be 'Buffy'

Need 2 more girls names.

Open to suggestions

 

[Cindilou]

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I have had Buffy and Buffy 2.0. I have bad luck with Buffies. One was a cannibal one was a roo

I hope you have good luck with yours. If I get another light colored one, though, it will be 3.0. She just keeps coming back from the dead.

 

[Miss Lydia]

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how is it going bb? hope they are hatching good and you now have some peeps..

 

[bburn]

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how is it going bb? hope they are hatching good and you now have some peeps..

Nothing this morning.....she is still stuck tight to the eggs. The one that was caved in a little has been turned along with the others and she is back on the nest. She came out long enough to eat very quickly, drink a little bit and go back onto the nest. My SIL got a quick picture of the eggs to show me.

There is no way that one egg can make it. Even if she saw the little one knock out a small chip of shell....the cave in probably took care of the chick. If it were going to make it out of the shell it would have been out this morning. Makes you sad. My SIL is besides herself with worry......this hen has been named Pretty Baby for a year but now I think in honor of my SIL and all the hard work she has done with my chickens while I have been laid up we will rename her to Donnadonna. (what my daughter used to call McDonalds) My SIL's name is Donna.

Will post if we get some hatched out!

 

[SCallahan]

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S, you do what you feel is best for your hen and chicks, if you move her at night along with the eggs that haven't hatched she will most likely accept it. Let us know how it goes..

The chickies, eggs and mama are all moved into a temporary pen area, covered with a tarp for shade.. They all seem happy, and are eating starter feed. No more hatching yet. The hen seems to be spending more of her time with the chicks than sitting on the eggs, do you know if this will cause the eggs to not hatch? How long should I wait for them before taking them out? Last possible day they could have been fertilized was 2 weeks and a day ago... It takes 21 days for them to hatch right?