They may be gone

[UnlabeledMama]

This is day 24 and I see no sign of hatching in the eggs under my broody hen. Two of them where rotten and the other have some of the mess on them. Did it kill them? Or could they have been bad to begin with? What do I do with my broody hen? Should I just take the eggs? How do I get her off the nest? She's been so intent I feel bad for her! She just wants to be a mama!

 

[bobbi-j]

Go to your local feed store, pick up half a dozen chicks (or however many you want), and at night slip them under her and take the eggs out. I did that with a broody bantam cochin I had a couple of years ago, and it worked like a charm. She raised those babies and had no idea she hadn't hatched them out herself.

 

[UnlabeledMama]

That's what I want to do but I am having a hard time tracking down some chicks. I had someone I was going to get chicks from and she lost that batch that was in the incubator.

So now I am at a loss!

 

[UnlabeledMama]

I found some! I just hope the fact that they are almost a week old won't effect her adopting them!

 

[bobbi-j]

Looking forward to hearing how it went.

 

[UnlabeledMama]

I slipped them under her! I did an eggtopsy and the eggs were definitely bad. Three had green, nasty stuff that came out and the other three were solid yellow liquid. Does that mean they were mishandled at one point?

I checked on her after a few minutes and the chicks were peeping and mama hen seems to be clucking contentedly! We'll see for sure in the morning!

 

[bobbi-j]

Sounds like they are off to a good start.

The non-developed eggs don't necessarily mean they were mishandled, or that anything was done wrong. Sometimes, it just happens that way. The eggs that were under that bantam cochin I mentioned didn't develop at all. Nothing. And I know the hens were exposed to the rooster. But it was early April, and I've heard that sometimes roosters aren't fertile early in the spring. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) So, maybe that was it or maybe it was something else. I had been keeping the rooster for a friend and she took him back later that spring. She got several batches of chicks from him.

 

[UnlabeledMama]

Happy mama and chicks!

 

[bobbi-j]

Hooray!