Taking chicks from Momma GOT PICS!!

[TitiBebbs]

Our turkey has been sitting on eggs for 2 months or more. She hatched one guinea which we promptly removed. Later, we removed the "dead eggs" and replaced them with chicken eggs (some from the refrigerator) and she's been sitting on them. Today, we got home to find SEVEN babies with her walking around the yard. By some miracle, we corralled her into the coop (everyone is free ranged here and the coop isn't much) and gathered all of the babies. We thought about leaving them, but we just lost our second duckling today. We don't want to lose any of these. Will Snowbird (that's Momma) settle down to the fact that her babies are gone? Will she go back to the nest and sit on more eggs, should they magically appear? Will she stop chasing all the guineas and chickens with whom she was raised? This is all so new to us, I need help!

Thanks for anything,

Beth

Here are the little darlings.
They are all from a male (probably Buff Orpington) and different females - Black Australorp, (maybe) Red Six-link, and Americana.

Here's the surrogate Momma

The Proud Poppa (ok maybe not proud, but busy)

THE MOMMAS

The Sex-Link, I think

This is one Americana girl, Eagle

Another Americana Momma, Sticky - she got into the sugar water her 1st day home

Here is one of the BA Moms.

Well, I tried to resize these, but no luck. Hmmm?

 

[smom1976]

wow are you saying that the eggs from the fridge hatched? How long were they in the fridge?

 

[TitiBebbs]

Quote:
Huh, funny the things that we pick up on, but yes. Some of the eggs came from the fridge. I'm not 100% sure how many nor if all the planted eggs have hatched, because our property is so very overrun with poison oak, sumac, and ivy that I can barely go outside. Ds and my father planted the eggs. Daddy isn't in town until tomorrow, but ds says they planted maybe 5 eggs and he added some later.

As for how long they were in the fridge, I'd say 2-3 days at most. Since we are all new to this and we are all readers (wanna know how to cull chickens for the freezer, read a book; how to keep rabbits from the garden? you guessed it read a book) I know I read, and Mom says she read it too that the chickens lay their eggs and let them sit until there are enough and then when they sit on them, they all start incubating at the same time. It doesn't matter if they get cold before she begins to sit because when she gets on, they start. At least that's the way we understand it.

Trying to get pics but Photobucket is working very slowly.