My first broody started on her 4 eggs Thursday (2 days ago). I let her keep the 1 egg of her own she was sitting on & gave her 3 BYM that were in an order I received on Wednesday. I had noticed she had skipped a couple days of laying recently & had been hanging out in the coop more. When I went to collect the eggs (I only have 2 hens laying so far, both banties) she started to puff up at me & wouldn't move out of the box like she usually does. So I decided to let her give it a try. I marked her egg & gave it back to her & then gave her the other 3 that were already marked. I had to kind of scoot them under her but once I got them part way she pushed them on under. She was out Friday morning eating around 8-9am for a few minutes & went back in before I came back in the house. Her eggs were still warm, so I know she hadn't been out long. My daughter said she saw her out eating this morning too, so no worries there. She's just so darn cute all stuffed down in the straw in her nest. She's so tiny anyway. That's why I only gave her 4 eggs too. I wasn't sure how many she could cover. Her egg is the tiniest little thing. The other 3 bantie eggs I gave her are almost twice as big. She appears to be a BCM/OEG Banty mix. My roo that is with her also appears to be a BCM?OEG banty mix & even has the leg feathering. Only thing is, she lays a white egg. I've been debating on trying to get some FBCM & breeding them with these 2 to make a Banty project out of them & see if I can get the egg color back.
Anyway, Sarah (my tiny broody) doesn't have too much of a problem with me checking her out & retrieving Lily"s egg from under her each day. She puffs a bit & lets it go once I let her sit back down. She even lowers her feathers when I pet her & tell her to calm down...LOL HOWEVER, let 1 of my kids try to even pet her & she pecks the crap out of them...LOL
Oh, and as for her abandoning the eggs...no problem there. My bator is already up & running with eggs in it.