I had not intended to hatch eggs. I had 2 pet hens and went on vacation and my neighbor, who gave them to me as baby chicks was watching them. One died the very day I left, and I was heartbroken. I had tried so hard with her. She hadn't been able to get to the deep, deep shade of the woodpile that hot day, 98 degrees F (freakishly hot for August 25), as was her custom, and the heat did her in, I believe. She'd always had a harder time breathing in the hot weather, than her sister, who survived.
So I'm trying to hatch some eggs so that her sister will have a companion for the long cold winter ahead. Chickens are flocking animals, and I've been told a sole chicken doesn't make it well alone. She really mourned and grieved her sister's death, I was told, looking everywhere for her missing sister.
I thought about buying an adult chicken companion for her but was told introduced grown chickens can introduce diseases. She and her her late sister are only 18 months old. I was told eggs that are brought in can also introduce disease but aren't as likely to as grown chickens are. So I decided trying to get her to hatch eggs was the best plan. I do have two adult chickens lined up to bring in for her if there are no hatches. A woman is giving away her chickens because her dog has already killed 5 of them.
The eggs were brought in from a church camp and are supposed to be fertilized, but I've read that hatching eggs in the fall doesn't usually work well, because it's later in the season, and it was something about a rooster's virility being lower as the summer declines and thus the eggs not being as prime as earlier in the spring. So we'll see... I'll keep you posted.
I'm going to be so sad if none of the eggs hatch, but at least then I can give the 2 hens a good home and spare them from being killed by the dog, if the dog doesn't get them before the eggs don't hatch.
Thanks for the info on lockdown.
My hen had never been broody at all until her sister died. Her sister, on the other hand, was always broody, sitting on unfertilized eggs. We broke her of it, and now I think it was a mistake. Maybe she would have lost weight sitting on those eggs and been spared that death on that hot day, because she may have been too fat and that may be why she died. But she was sitting on old unfertilized eggs under the house where I could not get to her, and I was so afraid she'd starve to death on those unfertilized eggs, waiting forever for them to hatch. I was also afraid of roost mites.
Her breast feathers were picked out, and I assumed it was from broodiness, but 2 1/2 months after breaking her of broodiness, the feathers were still picked out and looked more picked out than when she was broody, and I have read that that can be a sign of fatty liver disease, so our interference with her broodiness may have been a fatal mistake...
After she died, her sister brooded over her death and suddenly took to sitting on eggs... Both girls are/were Barred Rocks, which is not a breed known to broodiness.
My broody girl in Heaven is probably laughing now, saying, "See, I told you we should have some baby chicks, but you had to learn the hard way!" How I miss her. I have no children and she was my baby.
