Shattering eggs at around 21 days (hen sitting)

AndreaKash

In the Brooder
May 21, 2017
11
4
19
So this is the first time we have had one of our girls go broody. I didn't collect eggs for a few days and we found one of our Isa Browns sitting on a LARGE amount of eggs. We decided to let her do her thing and candle the eggs in a week to make sure there were no bad ones. On Thursday I got home and my son checked the coop and we have a chicken running around in the nesting box. We decided to move her and the chick and eggs inside in our spare room in a very large dog kennel because there was just no way for the chick to get out of the nesting box. Anyway, at this point our first chick is still running around doing great, everything else went down hill. We had another pip BUT mom starting picking the egg apart and then pushed it away. baby comes out with a hole in its stomach/chest (not where the yolk absorbs). It didn't live longer than 3 min. Then we had one pip and was peeping and seemed really active. I had to leave to go to a funeral and when I came home the egg was shattered but the membrane was intact but our poor chick was dead. Woke up the next morning to find a fully hatched chick making 2 but it never seemed as active as our first chick. Come home from work to find a shattered eggs with a half formed chicken laying in the nest. Then about an hour later chick #2 had died. Now mom keeps getting off the remaining eggs to chase baby around the kennel and I just found another egg where the shell had completely shattered but the membrane is completely intact. Is mom crushing the eggs? Did they stop developing and does something cause them to become fragle and shatter? We still have 6 eggs left and they could have been laid up to 5 days apart so I don't know if its to late for them or if they need a few days. I would appreciate ANY advice on what is best to do in this situation.
Andrea
 
the eggs don't really shatter, they come off in large pieces, so possibly she could be stepping on them. I think it would be best to put them in an incubator or under a heat lamp thats really close to the eggs so that they might have a chance of surviving. Hope this helps and the last six chicks hatch out fine!
 
Thats a better way to describe it, they just look like the pattern of shattered glass. Do they break more easily if they are not viable? Or is it normal for a hen to break a healthy developing egg?
 
not usually. Unless it is an accident, it is not normal for her to break them. But, if she knows that the chicks inside have died and will not hatch, or are unfertile, she will kick them out of the nest, but won't break them. Did you say the hen is chasing the first baby around the nest? Is it in a mean way? If it is, I think you should probably find that baby a home with someone who has new chicks as well for the chicks safety.
 
No she's great with the chick. She run over if it lets out a distress sound and the baby is usually huddled under her wings. The problem is she has a tendency to leave the nest and stay near the chick when its wondering around. I still have bulbs from when my chickens were new, would that would as a heat lamp?
 
what do you mean by bulbs? If you have the bulb that screws into the actual lamp part, then that would be dangerous and you would be unable to plug it in. You can buy heat lamps at any farm store if you don't have one. Good to know she is good with the little surviving chick. If you do put the remaining eggs under a heat lamp and they hatch out fine, wait until night time and then put them under the hen. In the meantime, you can give her ceramic eggs or golf balls to sit on.
 
Sure, those will work. You could put the eggs in a small cardboard box filled with wood shavings and put the lamp right on them with a thermometer in there. Keep them a 99.5 degrees (what i just read online). Once they hatch, keep them at 97-98 degrees until they go back under the hen at night. If one/several seem unwell keep them seperate as the healthy chicks will pick on the unhealthy ones, and see if they get better.
 
just read that it is hard to regulate humidity levels with a heatlamp and that it is hard to hatch with one. Maybe leave the eggs with her one more night and buy and incubator or borrow one from someone who has one. I read that someone did hatch chicks with a heatlamp but they only got a few to hatch, they could have been unfertile or had another problem though. I think it would be best to use an incubator, but if you can't get one, the best chance of these last six eggs' survival would be a heatlamp.
 

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