Only one egg hatched under broody so far. Advice?

[KauaiChickenMama]

Oh wow, so you definitely have a lot of experience with shipped hatching eggs! I definitely appreciate your input, LadiesAndJane, thank you so much. It helps me understand the whole process of hatching eggs better. How many birds do you have? And what breeds?

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Oh wow, so you definitely have a lot of experience with shipped hatching eggs! I definitely appreciate your input, LadiesAndJane, thank you so much. It helps me understand the whole process of hatching eggs better. How many birds do you have? And what breeds?

I currently have 16, my max is 20 for the space I have available and my own limit for manageability (I have 2 pens, one for layers, one for bantams).
I breed silkies, but also have a hodgepodge of other breeds, including a few silkie crosses, a bantam cochin and a Shetland Hen. I also have in my layer pen a few Marans (BCM and Lavender), a leghorn cross, an olive egger, a polish, and a few other mixed breed layers.
You mentioned your Lavender Orps, what other breeds do you have?
I got my Marans from Paradise Poultry here on the BI.
Photos of some of them yesterday while “free ranging” below.

 

[KauaiChickenMama]

What a great crew, LadiesAndJane! I have a family of 8 ladies. The mama is a Black Australorp and her 7 daughters are half Black Austalorp (from her) and I actually don’t know who the papa is...most likely a wild rooster from the park I live next to. The daughters are all solid black like their mama and they are roughly 8 months old now. Two of the daughters recently went broody, one month apart from each other. Thus, my recent experience with shipped hatching eggs. And true story, the mama and her babies literally just showed up on my front lawn one day, no joke! You can read all of the details in my intro story when I joined BYC by clicking here. I have pictures of them in that thread as well.

 

[KauaiChickenMama]

This is a picture of one of the daughters as well as the coop + run we’ve made for the 8 of them. I have two different extensions that we made for the two broody mamas (not pictures) so there are only six hens in the main coop right now.

 

[KauaiChickenMama]

“not pictured” is what I meant to say, not “not pictures”

 

[LadiesAndJane]

This is a picture of one of the daughters as well as the coop + run we’ve made for the 8 of them. I have two different extensions that we made for the two broody mamas (not pictures) so there are only six hens in the main coop right now.

Nice set up!
Beautiful black chicken!
I believe you that the chicken just showed up, that happens here too!
We have random feral chickens as well but not as many as you guys have on Kauai. The mongoose here keep the populations down.
At our local park I have seen what are obviously purebred roosters running around, I think people dump their unwanted boys at this park. I have also seen what looks like pure bred hens once in a while too. Fortunately they have plenty of food and water and other chickens to hang with.

 

[KauaiChickenMama]

Yeah, I’m guessing my purebred mama hen got dropped off at my nearby park. She initially had a limp, so she might have been injured and the original owners didn’t want to deal with it. I suspected bumblefoot, but when I checked her she was good. I couldn’t identify any obvious problems at the time, but she ended up healing just fine.

I’m glad the chickens at your park have each other and plenty of food and rain puddles to drink from. The weather here in Hawaii is so mild too- they never have to deal with cold weather. It’s a chicken’s paradise.

People reading this post just might want to know where your local park is so they could take home a purebred chicken upon returning home from their vacation on Big Island, lol.

 

[lifein1840]

Our young hen went broody so we ordered 12 Lavender Orpington hatching eggs for her. I let the shipped eggs rest for 9 hours, pointed side down, before putting them under her that night. She is in a separate pen, next to her sisters. On day 21, only one of the eggs hatched. The chick is adorable and is doing well. None of the others have hatched yet. I wanted to give it a couple of days to see if any late bloomers showed up on their own before I interfered at all. Today is day 23. Now what? She remains dedicated and is still sitting on the remaining 11 eggs. The one chick stays close to mama and has been eating and drinking just fine. If the rest of the eggs are not viable, will mama naturally abandon the nest of unhatched eggs on her own? Or will she just continue to sit on the eggs until they go rotten or what? What do you guys recommend I do at this point?

You need to candle the eggs tonight. If they aren't viable, get rid of them. If they break under the hen, you will have a MESS....

 

[NatJ]

You need to candle the eggs tonight. If they aren't viable, get rid of them. If they break under the hen, you will have a MESS....

OP already did candle the remaining eggs, the day after the first post:

I just finished candling the remaining 11 eggs. I was surprised to see that ALL of them were WATERY looking inside. That means they never developed, right?

 

[lifein1840]

OP already did candle the remaining eggs, the day after the first post:

Sorry, I missed that post