Our first time letting our hen sit on eggs, lots of questions!

[kmlmgm]

Help! First, I know we are going about this the wrong way, so please don't scold me. We realized my favorite hen was hiding eggs about a week ago, so I moved her to a nesting box and let her sit. Well, now we clearly have way too many eggs in there as the other hens did not stop using it after she took over. I had no idea that wouldn't automatically happen, so that was one of my mistakes. My questions are: how can I determine which eggs to pull and eat, what is the best method for "candling" dark brown eggs, will she accept a move to a more private area, can I harm the fertile eggs in a move, how long can they be off body warmth if she refuses and moves back to the nesting box? Also, she is an average sized Aracauna, how many eggs should she set on?

 

[chooks4life]

Help! First, I know we are going about this the wrong way, so please don't scold me. We realized my favorite hen was hiding eggs about a week ago, so I moved her to a nesting box and let her sit. Well, now we clearly have way too many eggs in there as the other hens did not stop using it after she took over. I had no idea that wouldn't automatically happen, so that was one of my mistakes.

Easy and common mistake to make when many publications confidently tell new chicken owners to 'let nature take its course'... But, of course, we've been tampering with nature for thousands of years with poultry so nature doesn't apply too much there anymore.

My questions are: how can I determine which eggs to pull and eat...

I use a handheld torch, nothing fancy, just a bright-enough LED-light one. Depending on how far developed some eggs are, I would remove every egg that is unlikely to hatch within a few days of the most developed. None of them may look appetizing in the pan unless they're under three days old though.

When you've looked at each egg, use a lead pencil or graphite pencil to mark them in some way you can easily distinguish; grade them according to development levels. As a general rule of thumb, if the most developed egg for example is 50% filled with dark mass, then any clear eggs, eggs with dark yolks and veins but nothing more, etc should be taken away.

Any egg whose visible mass of development is around 20% less than the most developed one/s should be kept because chances are it can develop to hatching point within 2 days of the most developed egg hatching, but anything further away than that should be removed.

This is just a general example, guesstimating that your hen will only allow 48 hours' grace from the first hatching before she abandons any that have not made it out in time, which would be enough time for an egg at the lesser level of development I described to catch up and hatch. Normally a hen with good instinct will only remain on the nest for 48 hours after the first hatchling; any longer and she is compromising the health of her guaranteed (hatched) bubs on a gamble of nonhatched ones making an appearance. Some hens will leave with the very first chick, which is something I don't allow them to repeat; no second clutches for that sort as they walk away from nests full of semi-hatched and ready-to-pip babies with just one chick following them, and that chick's not even yet strong enough to easily follow their mother.

There is absolutely no guarantee of what she will do. Some hens will sit as long as there are eggs, which will cause the already-hatched chicks' health to suffer a bit because when they're ready to leave the nest, they are actually needing exercise almost as much as food and water; beyond this period, they actually begin to weaken and do not develop according to normal rates, if kept on the nest. Some will actually abandon their mother if she fails to show enough instinct to meet their needs.

...what is the best method for "candling" dark brown eggs...

Bright torch and nighttime. I hear some people can't see into the very dark eggs, in which case a proper candling setup may be necessary.

...will she accept a move to a more private area...

No guarantees, it all depends on her, you, and the area. Mainly on her.

Most hens bond to the geographical location, not the nest or eggs. Only some bond to the eggs themselves, and those are generally hens who are smart and used to humans moving them.

Most others will return to the original nesting place and many will continue to brood the now-empty nest, abandoning the eggs. Some will snap out of broodiness at the first interference and there's nothing you can do to re-set them.

Your best bet is probably to move her at night time and lock her in the new location for a week, OR, let her return to her old location every day, and simply replace her every night until she bonds to the new location. You run the risk, with the second method, of her ceasing being broody, because her days are not spent on the eggs. Most eggs are robust enough to cope with that but no guarantees, unfortunately. With the first method she can also go un-broody but because she is seeing her eggs daily as she is locked in the cage with them, she will be more likely to remain broody. Studies on turkeys and other birds show there is a nerve in the breast area which is stimulated by contact with the nest and eggs, and this nerve in turn stimulates the production of the hormones that cause brooding behavior and physiological changes; if this nerve is cut or the stimulation stops broodiness stops as well. So continued contact with the eggs should be encouraged and if she insists on returning to the old nest, just move the eggs back with her, might be the best bet to keep her brooding.

Another method, which can work but tends to put other hens off the nest area, is to just let her brood where she wants, but put a bottomless small bird cage over the top of her. In this cage she will need water, and food, and sometimes she will need letting off the nest, at least once a day, but the small bird cage will stop the others adding to her clutch or damaging it, or bullying her. When she's actually hatched the chicks, generally with most hens you can move them to their actual chick-rearing cage then, as normally they will un-bond from the nest and bond to the chicks.

In cases like this, having small, mobile, lockable broody or convalescent cages are lifesavers, you're going to need them sooner or later, one way or another, so making one out of scrap is a good investment at any stage, preferably asap as you will always need it without warning.

....can I harm the fertile eggs in a move....

Generally nothing to worry about, just be more careful the closer they are to hatching. Try not to roll them too many times and that's about it. Healthy eggs are actually very tough and can cope with all manner of abuse without being harmed.

....how long can they be off body warmth if she refuses and moves back to the nesting box?

Depends on how developed they are. Non-developed eggs can keep for about a month before they start to go stale and die. The more developed they are, the less an increment of time they can be left cold. Generally speaking, an egg that is a few days off hatching can still cope with being left cold all day and even overnight. They stop metabolizing and developing and go into stasis until the temperatures return to the correct level to resume development. Once it's reached hatching time it's more precarious though even newly hatched chicks can appear to freeze to death and still be revived. Not recommendable, obviously. But they're tough little things. If you have seriously cold temperatures where you are, you'd have to adjust to that difference. The coldest we get is frost, here.

Also, she is an average sized Aracauna, how many eggs should she set on?

If you see them sticking out around the edges, that's too many. If she can cover them all, and she has the sense to tuck them under her correctly, they should be fine. A bad mother with weak or malfunctioning instincts can't be relied on to brood a single egg, whereas a little bantam with good instinct can cover 6 XL eggs reliably. A full-size hen with good enough instinct can cover 14 and sometimes more full-sized eggs. If you see her sitting without really sinking into the nest she may not be adequate to the task; some hens sit 'high' and don't really pancake themselves over the eggs the way a good mother does. If she won't sit her eggs properly chances are she won't snuggle her babies properly either. Most severe failures of maternal instinct have a few warning signals showing in other areas too.

If she is an unproven mother, you will need to watch her very closely in all her interactions with the babies. Instinct is not a given in domesticated animals, it varies wildly.

She may kill the chicks, she may ignore them, she may abandon her 'ruined' clutch to go sit on whole eggs once they hatch, leaving them to die; some hens only want eggs, not chicks, and may even view chicks as clutch-destroying enemies.

She may not tell them where food or water is, so gradually they starve unless they figure it out in time; she may walk off and leave them, or she may not heed their cries to be warmed so they chill to death gradually; she may just have a habit of pecking them every few minutes, seemingly not roughly, but regularly enough that they are paralyzed and die; if she makes them cry out, chances are she will kill them.

Some hens peck them very gently to make them stay under them until the mother says it's ok to venture forth, but if the chicks make sounds of pain, that's a bad sign. Pecking very gently on the head is how you will see this warning expressed, but pecking between the shoulder blades or any pecking that causes cries of pain is very bad and gradually the trauma will kill them.

If she does not respond to them vocally when they hatch, or she makes angry noises at them, these can be serious warning signs, but she may be making these noises at you so best to be sure before you remove them.

Some hens will redirect aggression towards humans or other birds onto their babies.

She may also mother wonderfully well for a few hours, a few days, or a week, before abandoning without warning. She may mother well only to perch every night leaving them to go cold on the floor, and at any point she may change any previously correct behaviors for negative ones. Abandonment is one thing that often comes out of the blue, whereas a truly good mother will give the chicks warning for at least a week before she abandons, and some will take months to abandon.

And of course she may be a great mother and give you no grief, but the main point I'm trying to make here is that the capacity for mothering varies so wildly and widely that no matter how good she is doing, keep a very close eye on her as she may be missing any piece of the puzzle, and her timer for abandoning is set to some random point you won't know until she's mothered for the first time. No trust until it's earned, lol!

She may fail in any one of dozens of ways a mother hen can fail to successfully mother, or she may be fine. In general if she fails badly enough she should never have a second chance unless you're willing to spend chick's lives on her education. If she harms them, I'd cull her. If she's just negligent, she may learn, but it will likely cost you chicks. I don't personally bother using hens that are bad mothers for 'round two' because it's not worth the hassle and death rate.

You should ideally try to set up some sort of emergency backup plan for the event of her failure. Most layer breeds are poor and unreliable mothers and there's no guarantee.

Best wishes.