Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

[echip]

Peepmommy, I can't handle the waiting either. I admire Mama Henrietta's patience, but it's so hard on us humans.

Here's my situation: Henrietta hatched one little chick on Day 23 yesterday, and 5 more today, Day 24! So yay! Six lively adorable chicks!! They are cute and she is a good mama.

But there are two more live eggs under her. Neither has pipped yet (no hole) but both are cheeping inside the eggs. What if they are stuck? What if they can't get out? How can you tell that? I hear tapping but it sounds very weak. I'm a total nervous wreck. Should I make a pip hole for them? All the advice on that (mostly NO DON'T POKE A HOLE!) is about incubator eggs. I would put them back under Henrietta. What should I do? I don't want them to die in there.
Help please.

 

[peepmommy]

I hope you get an answer soon! Congratulations on your babies and I hope your others are ok!!

 

[bobbieschicks]

Peepmommy, I can't handle the waiting either.  I admire Mama Henrietta's patience, but it's so hard on us humans.

Here's my situation:  Henrietta hatched one little chick on Day 23 yesterday, and 5 more today, Day 24!  So yay!  Six lively adorable chicks!! They are cute and she is a good mama.

But there are two more live eggs under her.  Neither has pipped yet (no hole) but both are cheeping inside the eggs.  What if they are stuck?  What if they can't get out?  How can you tell that?  I hear tapping but it sounds very weak.  I'm a total nervous wreck.  Should I make a pip hole for them?  All the advice on that (mostly NO DON'T POKE A HOLE!) is about incubator eggs.  I would put them back under Henrietta.  What should I do?  I don't want them to die in there.
Help please.

You should leave them alone and relax.

They will hatch shortly if they are going to hatch. It's best not to interfere. Let the momma take care of everything. Congrats on the new fuzzybutts! Post pics when you can.

 

[Miss Lydia]

You should leave them alone and relax.

They will hatch shortly if they are going to hatch. It's best not to interfere. Let the momma take care of everything. Congrats on the new fuzzybutts! Post pics when you can.

X2!!!

 

[echip]

Thanks everyone. I'm trying to calm down. I fear that Henrietta will decide to get up and take care of her first 6 leaving the 2 cheeping eggs to die, and I don't have an incubator.

Here are a couple of pix, although I don't have one of everyone together.

Mama Henrietta and baby chick. She is feeding it from her own mouth.



Here they are again.


Here is Henrietta and June, born first thing this June 1st morning. See the mother-love-light in her little henny eyes?



And here she is with two more. Henrietta is a bantam EE, and my best broody. From how panicked I was you wouldn't have guessed we did this before, I'll bet.

Still worried but not poking any holes.
Thanks again.

 

[lilstar]

Eek! She ate one of her eggs! Why would she do that and is there anything I can do to lessen the chance of it repeating? Today is day 5. My dd caught her in the act. I immediately brought her out, and she proceeded to take a dust bath while I cleaned it up. I cleaned up some poop (ew) and refilled her food. Then wiped the yolk off the other eggs with a wet wash cloth so it wouldn't be tempting. She went back in and is sitting again, gave me a nice reassuring growl when I went to check on her. I also learned that straw as bedding kinda sucks. Its hard to clean poop out of it and I'm worried about spilled water collecting under it and chilling the eggs. So I picked up some pine shavings. Will it upset her if I fully clean out her pen and give her a completely new material to nest in? Is the best time to do that at night when she's disoriented or during the day while she's out taking a break? I want to make sure she still recognizes it as "hers"

I kinda worry about whether stress could impact her behavior. The other day a couple other hens were checking her out and she seemed pretty irritated with them. I chased them off. There's also kids playing in the yard. They don't taunt her or anything, but they're big, loud creatures who run around unpredictably!

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

I'm fairly new at this broody thing, so until you get an answer from more experienced I'd say NO, do not change her bedding. It's so early for her, I'd even limit the time I spent looking at her. With my first broody I only peeked around to see if she was in her nest, and I really didn't want her to know I'd discovered her secret.
Stress can certainly cause odd behavior in all creatures. Do what you can to make her safe and secure. Alot depends on the hen as well, I know I spent half of one broodies time beating and banging, sawing and drilling in the coop, repairs had to be made, and it didn't seem to affect her at all. We both pretended the other wasn't there.
Usually they won't defecate in the nest, or eat their own eggs. Now I have a hen that I discovered eating eggs, and immediately removed her...I put her in her own flat, until I decide what to do..she was kinda scrawny, was picked on alot, and got too much attention from the roos. Now, she is acting calmer, she has her own little nest of eggs, clean and tidy, and hasn't eaten any...she is lucky that I have the space right now, and is too little to eat!
Maybe the other hens laid an egg in her nest? And she ate that one? Is she getting off the nest and eating when she does?

 

[lilstar]

I'm fairly new at this broody thing, so until you get an answer from more experienced I'd say NO, do not change her bedding. It's so early for her, I'd even limit the time I spent looking at her. With my first broody I only peeked around to see if she was in her nest, and I really didn't want her to know I'd discovered her secret. Stress can certainly cause odd behavior in all creatures. Do what you can to make her safe and secure. Alot depends on the hen as well, I know I spent half of one broodies time beating and banging, sawing and drilling in the coop, repairs had to be made, and it didn't seem to affect her at all. We both pretended the other wasn't there. Usually they won't defecate in the nest, or eat their own eggs. Now I have a hen that I discovered eating eggs, and immediately removed her...I put her in her own flat, until I decide what to do..she was kinda scrawny, was picked on alot, and got too much attention from the roos. Now, she is acting calmer, she has her own little nest of eggs, clean and tidy, and hasn't eaten any...she is lucky that I have the space right now, and is too little to eat! Maybe the other hens laid an egg in her nest? And she ate that one? Is she getting off the nest and eating when she does?

I already have moved her nest. She created one of her own in an inaccessible-to-humans location. We don't have a rooster and I couldn't reach there to remove all the eggs and put hatching ones in instead. So, I had to catch her while she was out for a break. And by "catch" I mean, walk over to her and pick her up. My hens are very tame I first tried a separate pen by the coop (coop is too small to have her nest be in there) and she was just beside herself, desperate to get out. She DID actually escape. I decided to try a big dog kennel, made a nest in there, pointed it so that the door faced her old nest and got it as close as I could. She actually accepted that reasonably quick. I've left her in there since, but moved it to a better location in the yard (after dark, just dragged it). Its in a lower traffic area, and I faced the door towards some bushes. Definitely no other hen in there.. the door's been shut. She does have space to stand up all the way, stretch her wings, walk around, eat, drink, poop. I'm thinking maybe I should force her to get outside once a day. I would really like to change out her straw for some pine. I didn't foresee how difficult it would be to clean poop out of straw :/ I picked up what I could, but some of it is just mushed in. And she spilled water making it damp. I'm really itchy to do at least some minor cleaning! Fresh pine shavings, that in the future I can just scoop out the gross bits and replace with fresh, would go a long way in there. But not if it will upset her. Which is why I wondered if I did it while its dark, and do it QUICKLY.. I could probably carton the eggs, dump out the straw, put in the pine, replace the eggs, and put her back in within a minute.

 

[ThePendragon]

In all my non-copious wisdom, change the straw while she's out for a break.

 

[BigIslandChicks]

i would say change the bedding as well. either at night or when she is off for a quick bite and a stinky poop. i have done it either way with a broody from my past flock.

right now though we have our first broody from this flock!!

she is my lil black cochin bantam and she is sitting on 4 eggs - three of them are my EE hens and a beautiful game rooster who escaped his home and came over to hang out with my ladies and the fourth egg is from a wild game hen and the same rooster - oooh i just remembered i got a picture of him before my 4yr old DD broke the camera. ill have to upload it for yous. funny i got a pic of him bc i was trying to decide if we should keep him or just catch and release somewhere else - when a few of the neighborhood boys came jumping over our gates saying they saw their rooster!! sadly here we have lots of illegal cock fighting and i think they just wanted him for that but he had no spurs already and he had been dubbed so i think he was a fighter. well sadly i let them have him - as i have 8 roosters right now and didnt know if i was going to keep him anyhow and im not sure if he was theirs or not but its water under the bridge now - funny thing the boys came back a few days later looking for the rooster again, but i never see him - they said he got out again. that was a few weeks ago and then the cochin gal went broody and the only fertile eggs i had were his. so now we are getting close to hatch day and all 4 eggs are developing ( i just got in from candling

, only the second time, i swear!) im not sure what day we are on but we have less than a week to go by the looks of things. cant wait to see the lil buggers!! my lil mama is doing so good, except that she is COVERed in mites - after i did the candling they were all over my hands - i will be dusting her first thing in the am with DE - i would do it tonight but its in the shed and im lazy already - shower time then bed. well maybe just after i upload and post that pic. lol