Silkie thread!

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

I left both girls in their boxes tonight.. both flat as pancakes! I will put dummy eggs in tomorrow. I couldn’t get to my cabinet they’re in without disturbing roosting girls. Both of those Silks laid me eggs today.

 

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

I would move the broody to where you want her to lay and give her dummy eggs. Give her 24 hours to make sure she will sit, as moving them sometimes stresses them and it breaks their broodiness. Once she sits on her dummy eggs and builds up her nest around her, and you know she is content sitting there, slip her the eggs you wanna hatch, preferably at night.

Since I definately don’t want her to stop being broody, should I just let her stay in the nest box cluster? I actually have 2 girls broody at the same time it seems so I could let one or both stay in the boxes they chose. I guess I'm a bit unsure of the whole moving them thing.. It seems good in theory, but whenever I move almost all of my girls on the roosts at bedtime it is almost a sure thing they're gonna just move themselves right back. I definitely wouldn't want the mama to up and leave her eggs for her "prime" nesting place. I hope that makes sense.

 

[FishMtFarm]

You can leave them if you so choose but you wanna make sure dominant hens will t kick them off their nest. Maybe kinda blockade them in there or something.

 

[Silkie2]

Is it to early to tell if this’ll be a rooster? It’s 1 week old and i noticed my other week old silkie has a lot more wing feathers then this one. Hoping its a pullet
(These were the best photos i could get of it)

Also i posted a thread asking what this silkie’s color was going to be and a lot of people were either saying buff or partridge? Anybody have a good idea what she’ll/he’ll be?

Thanks

 

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

I would move the broody to where you want her to lay and give her dummy eggs. Give her 24 hours to make sure she will sit, as moving them sometimes stresses them and it breaks their broodiness. Once she sits on her dummy eggs and builds up her nest around her, and you know she is content sitting there, slip her the eggs you wanna hatch, preferably at night.

This is what I did today.

I put Silkie #1 (Snowball) in the brooder tonight once it got dark. I placed her in the nest on top of fake eggs, it has water and food on the opposite side of nest. She fussed quite a bit and after about an hour, I peeked in on her. She was sleeping but not in the nest, but over by the food and water. I hope she'll figure it out in the morning. All day today she had been in a nest box sitting happily on her (mostly) fake eggs. However, the other hens would cause a fuss (usually by sitting in her nest) and she would end up sitting in a new box with new eggs. Very much seeing the need for her to be in a place where she is separate. I just hopes she comes around to my thinking sooner rather than later.

I continued to let Silkie#2 (Maple) stay in her nest box on the floor. But, I put a temporary wire "fence" around her so that all of my nosey other girls would leave her and her fake eggs be. We ended up putting a small portal in it though, so she could get out and get food and dust bathe. When she couldn't get out, she freaked out a bit (ok, a lot!) even though she had food and water close by.

I'm hoping both will continue to show their broody colors tomorrow and be on their way to hatching eggs in a few days. I did however stop by our local TS and picked up an incubator as an insurance policy. I didn't want to come this far and have a hiccup and end up loosing all eggs due to it. I can post pics tomorrow of their setup, I forgot to get pictures of the final setups before nightfall.

 

[NNYchick]

I have a Broody Saga going on too. Last night I went out and had 2 broodies in one nest and they divided the eggs up between them. Then this morning I go out and the 2 broodies, rooster and 2 other hens have all decided they must be missing out and were in the nest box, other 2 hens couldn't fit so they were on the edge of the box. UGG, I didn't have a chance to check eggs and make sure none got broken. Tonight I am going to put up the wire dog yard around the nest box if I still have eggs intact. I have another broody in the other nest box that is happily sitting on nothing. I take her out every morning and night rub her under her wings to get her out of her trance, she eats and goes back to the empty nest box. These crazy chickens LOL. I think my poor rooster is lonely all his laying ladies are broody, the other half of his flock isn't laying yet.

 

[moomoodiddy]

I wish mine would go broody

 

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

This is what I did today.

I put Silkie #1 (Snowball) in the brooder tonight once it got dark. I placed her in the nest on top of fake eggs, it has water and food on the opposite side of nest. She fussed quite a bit and after about an hour, I peeked in on her. She was sleeping but not in the nest, but over by the food and water. I hope she'll figure it out in the morning. All day today she had been in a nest box sitting happily on her (mostly) fake eggs. However, the other hens would cause a fuss (usually by sitting in her nest) and she would end up sitting in a new box with new eggs. Very much seeing the need for her to be in a place where she is separate. I just hopes she comes around to my thinking sooner rather than later.

I continued to let Silkie#2 (Maple) stay in her nest box on the floor. But, I put a temporary wire "fence" around her so that all of my nosey other girls would leave her and her fake eggs be. We ended up putting a small portal in it though, so she could get out and get food and dust bathe. When she couldn't get out, she freaked out a bit (ok, a lot!) even though she had food and water close by.

I'm hoping both will continue to show their broody colors tomorrow and be on their way to hatching eggs in a few days. I did however stop by our local TS and picked up an incubator as an insurance policy. I didn't want to come this far and have a hiccup and end up loosing all eggs due to it. I can post pics tomorrow of their setup, I forgot to get pictures of the final setups before nightfall.

So this morning I went out and she, Snowball, was pacing back and forth like crazy still.
I let her out and immediately she went up to her nest box that she had picked. So, this is what I did. It has a Silkie sized hole in it so she only can get in and out.


Does anyone think a secluded box (with a lid) help encourage their broodiness? Maple, our other Silkie acts broody except her breaks right now are LONG!

 

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

How long will my hatching eggs be viable before I need to either give them to a broody or put them in the incubator? They were laid Wednesday and Thursday (yesterday).

 

[FishMtFarm]

I store mine in an egg carton in the fridge and have hatched eggs that were four weeks old with great success. Store at room temp, after 7 days the chances of hatching go down drastically.