Setting Eggs Today

[Cats Critters]

This starts with my suspicions the last couple days that my BA/EE hen had started hiding eggs from me and I had been debating looking them up for a few days to get her laying in the coop again. But yesterday I went to lock up and she wasn't in the coop, so I went looking around for her thinking she had gone broody some where and could not find her. In the middle of the night I had a thought of a place I hadn't checked and I knew they had dug some dust bathing holes and some times hung around.

So I go and check this morning a sure enough there she was with a nice nest where blended into the surrounding dirt pretty well (she is a black hen). I reach under her and she freaks and runs off to the coop screaming her head off, so I begin collecting eggs in my shirt and counting them. She had 15 eggs, all hers because she is my only green layer. So I go inside with the news of her eggs and after spending all summer asking to be aloud to let one of the hens hatch eggs (over the course of the summer all 5 hens have been broody at least once, two of them twice) and after seeing the dedication it was decided that I would be aloud to give 3 eggs to her and 3 eggs to my 2nd time this summer broody buff bantam cochin.

So I candle the eggs and no one is showing signs of growth yet (if any had they would have been set before the others). Go out to the coop and catch and then recatch the BA/EE and put her in the cochin's side of the coop where she gets into a fight with the white cochin. So I close the pop door leaving the black mottled and white cochin outside so she can have a chance to calm down and settle on to a nest.

But she hasn't calmed down yet so all six eggs are under the buff cochin (which is a tight squeeze) and if the BA/EE does calm down today/tonight I'll give her three of the eggs and in about 20-21 days we should have babies!


The bantam buff cochin:


The BA/EE hen, who is mom to all the eggs:


and Dad to all the eggs, my EE rooster Red:

 

[Cats Critters]

Well the BA/EE hen never settled down and the bantam buff cochin can't keep six eggs warm so I took three eggs out, but hopefully she will do a good job with the 3 eggs.

 

[Cats Critters]

One of the eggs has pipped!

 

[Cats Critters]

Well last night the first pip had made progress and another had pipped, this morning I went out to find two egg shells, an egg (still not pipped), and one chick which of course sent me looking all around to find another baby. But I found it another little chipmunk chick dead behind the garbage can where I store feed. I think what happened is it fell out of the nest, then hid behind the garbage can away from my other two cochin hens and got too cold and died. So now mom, baby, and the remaining egg are in a nest in a cage on the floor.

 

[Cats Critters]

Well I had a suspicion very early on that one of the eggs wasn't developing and sense there had been no sign of progress from the last remaining egg I cracked the end open to see if there was an internal pip, instead I found an egg that might have developed a few days but had then stopped. So I buried it next to the chick that died and removed the nest box from the cage.


With the removal of the nestbox from the cage mom and her one chick are getting use to a little more space so baby can learn how to stick around mom for warmth and to learn how to follow her. They have a chick waterer to drink from and chick food will be here this afternoon. So far they are doing well and in a few days I'll let them out of the cage, but leave them shut in the coop with the other two cochin hens so that they can get use to the other birds and even more space. Then after that when the chick is a little sturdier and they have gotten the sticking together down I'll open the door to the run and let them be. I've added some smaller size wire to part of the fence that has bigger holes so that the chick can't get out into the yard where mom can't reach it. So hopefully this little one is a pullet or I'm going to be heart broken in a few weeks.