- Sep 17, 2012
- 28
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Hi
I probably should have joined this forum a few months ago but a bit of retrospective advice would be useful.
We have 4 ex bats and 2 silkie/sussex (Harriet and Veronica) that go broody at the drop of a hat, we've lost a couple of ex-bats over time and egg production has gone down so we decided to expand the flock but getting H&V to hatch the eggs for us. so... V went broody and we went off to our local hatchery to get some eggs, 2 French Marans and 2 Partridge Orpingtons, we kept the eggs in the kitchen for 24 hours to allow them to settle them put V and the eggs into her own little coup and run, V did not like this, she went totally crazy, wouldn't settle, kept pacing up and down trying to get back to the rest of the flock, we probably should have forseen this but we thought we were doing the right thing. Anyway, we put the eggs and V back in the main nest box, H also went broody the next day so we split the eggs between the two hens and had them in separate nest boxes. For the next 3 weeks they didn't move, rolled the other chicken eggs under them, which we went in and removed, 3 weeks passed by and one of the eggs peeped, it hatched a few hours later but when we checked on it H started attacking it so we whipped it out and we've been hand rearing. A few days later there was still no sign of the other 3 so I shone a torch through them and they were solid so I assume the chicks developed but didn't hatch, I hung onto them for about 5 days then disposed of them at the advice of the hatchery.
Any ideas why they didn't hatch? I'm assuming H attacked the chick due to us disturbing her or could it be that she knew it wasn't her chick?
We'd like to try it again but want to know why it didn't work this time so we can stop it from happening again,
Thanks
Rach
x
I probably should have joined this forum a few months ago but a bit of retrospective advice would be useful.
We have 4 ex bats and 2 silkie/sussex (Harriet and Veronica) that go broody at the drop of a hat, we've lost a couple of ex-bats over time and egg production has gone down so we decided to expand the flock but getting H&V to hatch the eggs for us. so... V went broody and we went off to our local hatchery to get some eggs, 2 French Marans and 2 Partridge Orpingtons, we kept the eggs in the kitchen for 24 hours to allow them to settle them put V and the eggs into her own little coup and run, V did not like this, she went totally crazy, wouldn't settle, kept pacing up and down trying to get back to the rest of the flock, we probably should have forseen this but we thought we were doing the right thing. Anyway, we put the eggs and V back in the main nest box, H also went broody the next day so we split the eggs between the two hens and had them in separate nest boxes. For the next 3 weeks they didn't move, rolled the other chicken eggs under them, which we went in and removed, 3 weeks passed by and one of the eggs peeped, it hatched a few hours later but when we checked on it H started attacking it so we whipped it out and we've been hand rearing. A few days later there was still no sign of the other 3 so I shone a torch through them and they were solid so I assume the chicks developed but didn't hatch, I hung onto them for about 5 days then disposed of them at the advice of the hatchery.
Any ideas why they didn't hatch? I'm assuming H attacked the chick due to us disturbing her or could it be that she knew it wasn't her chick?
We'd like to try it again but want to know why it didn't work this time so we can stop it from happening again,
Thanks
Rach
x