Possible hazard?

[DURR]

Ok so today I went out looking for eggs, and come across a whole clutch up to 7 eggs in a rusted out oyster roasting barrel. Its brittle and flaking. And they belong to a hen that is impossible to catch seeing as um down to 6 chickens to pen up. I've had a few go missing. Possibly from foxes because we live in the middle of a wildlife managment area. Should I move them in with the few I have incubating or leave them?

 

[Judy]

If the hen were sitting on the eggs to hatch, she should be on them almost 24/7 and therefore easy to catch. It sounds more like you have found a spot that one or several are simply using to lay. I'd remove the eggs and do something to make that spot unattractive to them, like remove the barrel or turn it upside down. This is just something that free range birds do sometimes, although I free ranged for a couple of years and really didn't have a problem with it. I kept the food and water in the coop where the nest boxes were, and they mostly laid only in the coop. They also slept only in the coop.

 

[DURR]

Ok I can do that I am currently building a coop so that's outta the question right now. But I have the majority of my hens paired with roosters in home-made chicken pens and a small one hen coop purchased from our local feed store. So I only have the six hens and one rooster free ranged. The chickens were left to fend for themselves by our neighbor after they moved so we sort of adopted them haha. When I approached the barrel she had flown out and I looked in and found them. Although when I felt the eggs they were cold and not warm but one which I figured she had just lain. At the moment I have a make-shift incubator in my cuppard above my water heater where its somewhat humid, noticable tempature change mostly with a lamp hanging over them about a foot, the eggs are warm but not too hot. I've also read that you could place them in a reptile tank that uses heat lamps. I have a geko that uses a heat lamp and humidifier aswell would this be a better solution?