Licorice, one of our year-old Black Sex Links, went broody for the first time around August 4. We moved her to a special ark on the evening of the 5th and let her sit the 9 eggs she was protecting. We built it to look like "home" - two nesting boxes on one end, with straw in one for the eggs, no straw but food and water in the other. The first chick hatched two days ago, and two more hatched yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, we peeked in to see that she was eating and drinking with the babies. I could see another one starting to hatch, and one that was definitely dead, so I removed the dead one and the extra shells, then closed the door and left them all alone. Well, this morning I looked in to see Licorice sitting on the food and water side with the first three chicks, and cold eggs in the nesting side. One of the eggs never developed, and one had been crushed days ago, by the look of things. The other three, including the one that had been hatching yesterday afternoon, were cold as ice, no movement, no pipping, nothing.
We'd heard of hens abandoning the nest after a certain amount of time, so we figured that's what had happened, until we realized that the divider between the boxes - while easy to negotiate on the straw side - might have been too high for the babies to hop over from the wood side. Thus, when faced with keeping the live ones warm or sitting on the remaining eggs, Licorice chose the live chicks. So, I'm thinking that those last three deaths were our fault for not realizing that the baby chicks wouldn't be able to hop that high this early.
On the other hand, I had gone out to listen at the coop several times yesterday, and never heard Licorice sounding distressed, so maybe she really was done. In any case, we have removed the divider so that Licorice and the three survivors can have some nice warm clean straw to sleep on again.
With our luck, they'll all be roosters.
We'd heard of hens abandoning the nest after a certain amount of time, so we figured that's what had happened, until we realized that the divider between the boxes - while easy to negotiate on the straw side - might have been too high for the babies to hop over from the wood side. Thus, when faced with keeping the live ones warm or sitting on the remaining eggs, Licorice chose the live chicks. So, I'm thinking that those last three deaths were our fault for not realizing that the baby chicks wouldn't be able to hop that high this early.
With our luck, they'll all be roosters.
