Staggered hatch and crushed eggs Help!!!

[SaraAmish]

So we have a staggered hatch and unsurprisingly it has not gone well. Over the last 3 days we have found 3 hatched dead chicks and one crushed egg with a fully formed chick in it. The most recent chick was shoved to the edge of the nest and I am worried that perhaps the nest might be the problem. She is just on some sawdust, and it's more flat than bowl shaped.

I am torn with interfiering but my thought is we pull the off the nest at night (so she is calm) and then add some better nesting material, and then put the hen back on.

But I don't want to bother mama hen too much. How much is to much? So far we typically check underneath her once a day or so. I am thinking maybe we should just completely leave her alone but I don't want any dead chicks staying underneath her and getting gross.

A little lost so any advice/insight would be great!

 

[Rooster G]

Staggered hatch for me equals a mess. I like straw nests. I would clean it all up, give more nestng materials of your choice as soon as possible and then leave her alone until you see her walking around with her hatchlings and then clean up what is left.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

HOW TO HATCH CHICKS
A movable nest box 12x12x18 with a 1 inch gap between top, sides, & back with a 1/2 inch hardware cloth floor is a great nest for incubating. Cut a divot of turf a little larger than the floor of the nest, turn this divot grass side down, and fit it to the bottom of the nest. You now have a bowl shaped depression in the bottom of the nest box. A good double hand full of wheat straw will do for a filler and set the nest on the bare Earth where it will get a little humidity raising from the ground then pour about a quart of plain old water in it before it goes into use. Now religiously gather the eggs each and every day and in cold weather do so 4 times per day. Store the eggs at 55 degrees f for no more than 15 or 16 days for the oldest egg, turning every egg once a day. If you don't have a hen sitting or an incubator after the 15th egg goes into storage remove the oldest egg for your morning breakfast but keep the 15 newest eggs for hatching. When a hen decides to sit (in the nest described above) give her the 15 newest eggs to hatch and do so in the dead of night & remove the nest egg or eggs. Immediately move the nest, the eggs, and the sitting hen to a small safe pen where she will not be bothered by other hens and she can do her business in peace and quite. Make sure that she has a continuous supple of fresh water and feed at all times. Then walk away just walk away and let her be. Out of 15 eggs (and with a little practice) you should hatch 12 to 15 chicks per clutch. Just wait for her to leave the nest on her own and begin squiring her chicks around in her own good time. Don't forget to just walk away and don't fool, monkey, or mess with the nest, the hen, or the eggs in any manner. If you just can't help yourself and you have to play Buck Rogers with a light source try to learn Morse Code by tinkering with a flashlight while your eggs are incubating.

Start with these instructions and as you get better & better at doing less & less you will soon get so good at doing nothing that you may could start candling your eggs after about the 10th day.

 

[SaraAmish]

Oh my goodness! We haven't done anything yet (we were going to do it tonight) and when we went in there there was one little happy heathy baby underneath mom!!!!!!!!!

There was also another hen who was trying to sit on the nest, so we had to put her on the roost.

But yay! We did it! Well, mama chicken did it but still.