Too many eggs, first chick hatched a week ago

[mmmarta]

I need help! First chick hatched a week ago, followed by 3 more, what do I do with the other eggs, if I don't know when exactly they were layed?
--
The story:
After laying for 6 weeks, my Little Hen went broody - I did not have a heart to break her broodiness.

She started with two eggs, and kept laying, and other hens kept adding eggs into her box, although they had another one at their disposal. I ended up with 12 eggs under her! (I still took some away). In the meantime another hen went broody, and ended up with 6 eggs.

I have four chicks now, hatched 7, 6, and 5 or 4 days ago.

What do I do with the unhatched eggs? Do I wait to give them a chance? I read stories about exploding eggs But i don't want to kill chicks if they are about to hatch

I did some things wrong or potentially wrong:

- I did not mark the eggs with a date (dumb, did not think they will keep laying);
- I never candled them, assuming that the hens know better. I am anxious to touch any of the eggs now;
- I've moved one hen off the eggs every day to let her out - she would not move otherwise. Now i have to move all of them, otherwise they poop in the nest. Did the eggs get cold? The temps were above in the 60ies;
- At some point in the 3rd week I've marked the eggs in the nest with a marker (shame) - did I kill the chicks?
- So many eggs! Was the hen even able to warm them all? I would assume that at least the ones ain the middle of the nest should be fine...

Oh Wise Community, what do I do?

And a dumb question - what do I do with the unhatched eggs? How do you discard of them?
Thank you so much!

 

[Jennc-123]

Do you have an incubator? Candle them now. Are either of the broodies still sitting? If you don't have an incubator you could try the oven light.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/emergency-hatching-no-incubator.1400933/

 

[mmmarta]

The hens are still sitting, this morning they pushed one of the eggs out of the nest.

I have an incubator in case of an emergency, i.e. if the hens abandon the nest.

So I should candle the eggs and return to the hens if they seem 'filled', and wait?

 

[Jennc-123]

I would wait if they're still sitting. But they will need to leave the nest to take care of the hatched chicks so prepare for that.

 

[mmmarta]

Thank you So until the hens feel like leaving, I'll leave them be. I added a little brooder in front of the nesting boxes, and the chicks run around there, eat and drink, with a constant access to the hens.

One more chick just hatched!

 

[Jennc-123]

How's your hatch going now?

 

[mmmarta]

Thank you for checking in! Hatched 11 cute chicks so far, they just take several days in between hatches. 5 more eggs to go!

 

[JerryPerez54]

I need help! First chick hatched a week ago, followed by 3 more, what do I do with the other eggs, if I don't know when exactly they were layed?
--
The story:
After laying for 6 weeks, my Little Hen went broody - I did not have a heart to break her broodiness.

She started with two eggs, and kept laying, and other hens kept adding eggs into her box, although they had another one at their disposal. I ended up with 12 eggs under her! (I still took some away). In the meantime another hen went broody, and ended up with 6 eggs.

I have four chicks now, hatched 7, 6, and 5 or 4 days ago.

What do I do with the unhatched eggs? Do I wait to give them a chance? I read stories about exploding eggs But i don't want to kill chicks if they are about to hatch

I did some things wrong or potentially wrong:

- I did not mark the eggs with a date (dumb, did not think they will keep laying);
- I never candled them, assuming that the hens know better. I am anxious to touch any of the eggs now;
- I've moved one hen off the eggs every day to let her out - she would not move otherwise. Now i have to move all of them, otherwise they poop in the nest. Did the eggs get cold? The temps were above in the 60ies;
- At some point in the 3rd week I've marked the eggs in the nest with a marker (shame) - did I kill the chicks?
- So many eggs! Was the hen even able to warm them all? I would assume that at least the ones ain the middle of the nest should be fine...

Oh Wise Community, what do I do?

And a dumb question - what do I do with the unhatched eggs? How do you discard of them?
Thank you so much!

I have plenty hens that go broody, Brahmas, Australorpes, Blue Plymouth, Turkens, and Leghorns, however, they all like to lay eggs together in the same nest box even thought they're plenty nesting compartments. I have a real nice setup and they're free range. I buillt me a beautiful large incubator which has 150 all fertile eggs in it as I type including 10 Pekin Duck eggs. I pick my eggs every day. I incubate a bit of all but mainly my Brahmas since they're my favorite and it's a great meat bird and so are the Australorpes. So, I use them for meat and egg production. I use all the above for meat and egg but my Leghorns strictly for eggs since they lay beautiful large to jumbo eggs everyday. My other hens lay beautiful brown eggs. Incubate all my eggs, have a 100 gallon bin next to it as my brooder and at 4 weeks I place them outside in a 10' x 10' brooder. At 7 weeks old I vaccinate them for avian pox, then I cut them loose and within a day they'll begin following my adults and transitioning to their large sleeping quarters. I candel on day 5, day 10, and day 18. By day 5, I place any infertiled eggs aside, boil them and feed them back to the chickens. Day10, I discard any dead eggs which I haven't had any yet, and on day 18, after candling and seeing the dark mass, I leave them alone, stop turning them and wait until they hatch. Last year I hatched 75 at a 100% hatch and now I'm hatching 150 and so far it's looking at 100%. It's a little work, I'm constantly making sure my temperature and humidity is on point, I turn my eggs every 6 hours and have 3 temperature hygrometers set in 3 different areas of my incubator to make sure the heat and humidity is covering correctly, if not you'll end up with cold spots.