I have two Australorp hens that love to go broody at the same time. I finally decided spur of the moment to let one of my girls hatch out some eggs that my 10 year old son and I got at the local farmers market. This hen is at the bottom of the pecking order and I figured it would be a good respite for her to be pampered off by herself for a while. After getting the eggs home and dead set on baby chicks, we realized that the chances of 2-3 babies were slim because the lady who sold us the eggs said that she only has 1 roster for 150 hens. So what did I do? I panicked of course and ordered some eggs off E-bay. I figure that I would let her sit on the eggs from the farmers market while we waited for the eggs in the mail.
Out of a dozen, 9 made it intact from their cross country trip through the USPS . I did not have high hopes for these because the air sacks all seemed to be unattached. I let them rest for 24 hours with the pointy side down and then put them in an incubator because I didn't think they should be turned on their sides very much. 2-3 times a day, I moved them around a little, very gently. I kept them in the proper position for the air sac to be at the top and hoped for the best but expected the worst.
As fate would have it, four of the farmer's market eggs ended up being fertile so I couldn't put any of the incubator eggs with that clutch even if I wanted to. They were 6 days apart at this point and it wasn't going to work.
I ended up with 4 E-Bay eggs that progressed to day 20 in the incubator. Meanwhile my second hen had relentlessly stayed broody this whole time. I figured that if she stayed that way till the incubator eggs hatched I would give them to her. Well on day 20, I had 1 chick start to pip and as soon as I saw that she had broken through and made a little hole externally I put her under the second broody to hatch.
I'm glad I did this for two reasons. First, it gave my hen the opportunity to talk to the chick while it was still in the egg so she was not just surprised by some little chick being placed under her. It seems more natural. Second, I still had 3 other eggs that I had in an upright position in the incubator trying to pip internally and I did not want them to get knocked over by this little chick stumbling around trying to find her legs and drying off.
My second broody did great with the first chick and I have now placed 2 more eggs under her as they pipped externally. She is talking to all three babies and fingers crossed everything goes okay. I have a nanny cam on her in my garage and I'm enjoying watching her bond with the chicks. It's like the eagle cam live stream with sound.
So we now have four little chicks from the farmers market with my first hen doing just great in the garage turned maternity ward. With my second hen taking care of her three mail order incubator chicks just feet away. Watching nature do it's thing. It's beautiful!
I do have 1 more egg still in the incubator that made it to day 20 but I think that it has failed. Its air sack was very damaged and split so I expected to lose her. I'll do an eggtopsy tomorrow if no progress by then. I know this is an old thread but I'll post in a few days the outcome if anyone out there is curious.
Out of a dozen, 9 made it intact from their cross country trip through the USPS . I did not have high hopes for these because the air sacks all seemed to be unattached. I let them rest for 24 hours with the pointy side down and then put them in an incubator because I didn't think they should be turned on their sides very much. 2-3 times a day, I moved them around a little, very gently. I kept them in the proper position for the air sac to be at the top and hoped for the best but expected the worst.
As fate would have it, four of the farmer's market eggs ended up being fertile so I couldn't put any of the incubator eggs with that clutch even if I wanted to. They were 6 days apart at this point and it wasn't going to work.
I ended up with 4 E-Bay eggs that progressed to day 20 in the incubator. Meanwhile my second hen had relentlessly stayed broody this whole time. I figured that if she stayed that way till the incubator eggs hatched I would give them to her. Well on day 20, I had 1 chick start to pip and as soon as I saw that she had broken through and made a little hole externally I put her under the second broody to hatch.
I'm glad I did this for two reasons. First, it gave my hen the opportunity to talk to the chick while it was still in the egg so she was not just surprised by some little chick being placed under her. It seems more natural. Second, I still had 3 other eggs that I had in an upright position in the incubator trying to pip internally and I did not want them to get knocked over by this little chick stumbling around trying to find her legs and drying off.
My second broody did great with the first chick and I have now placed 2 more eggs under her as they pipped externally. She is talking to all three babies and fingers crossed everything goes okay. I have a nanny cam on her in my garage and I'm enjoying watching her bond with the chicks. It's like the eagle cam live stream with sound.
So we now have four little chicks from the farmers market with my first hen doing just great in the garage turned maternity ward. With my second hen taking care of her three mail order incubator chicks just feet away. Watching nature do it's thing. It's beautiful!
I do have 1 more egg still in the incubator that made it to day 20 but I think that it has failed. Its air sack was very damaged and split so I expected to lose her. I'll do an eggtopsy tomorrow if no progress by then. I know this is an old thread but I'll post in a few days the outcome if anyone out there is curious.
