Questions about my broodies!

[Weasleymum]

My "flock" right now consists of 2 adult hens in the backyard, and 3 chicks in the laundry room. Both, BOTH of my big girls are broody right now! If I'd known that was going to happen, I would have held off on getting chicks, naturally... Anyway. Because they are a flock of two, they are very close, and right now are sharing a nesting space. I contacted somebody I'd bought eggs from before about getting some fertile eggs for them to set, and it turned out that she was looking for somebody to hatch some eggs for her! Win-win situation. She suggested giving me 10-12 eggs and I could keep a few in return. But, when we met up, she had 20 eggs with her, 10 for EACH bird. This would not be a problem, of course, except that one of them has been broody for a long time already, and I don't know if she'll make it through hatching these out. My plan had been that if she abandoned the nest I would add her eggs to the other's, since the other has only been broody a few days.

So.

How long can a hen possibly be broody before just giving up? She's been at least two weeks already.

Can she 'sense' that these eggs, unlike the others she was setting, are actually fertile? At what point do they know?

If I have to do an emergency transfer, how many eggs can a full-sized hen reasonably sit? The just-went-broody is a Cuckoo Maran, normal size, easily covering 10 eggs but I don't see how she could do 20... I don't have an incubator or anything like that.

I'm starting to wish I'd refused the extra eggs and only taken the 12... I don't want to kill six unborn chickies.

 

[bobbi-j]

I think I'd invest in an incubator. Just a table-top one, if you can afford it. That way if your longer term broody gives up, you can put the eggs in there. I don't believe your other one could effectively cover 20 eggs. Of course, you can also candle during the incubation period and maybe you'll have some to discard. It wouldn't be quite such a problem then.