I have a rhode island red hen, and she has been sitting on her first batch of fertilized eggs. She has been sitting on them for nearly 2 months. I was thinking of going ahead and taking them away but I decided to let them be and see what happens. Anyways she did have 9 eggs and 3 have been broken cause of my hens stepping on them wrong or my rooster sitting in the nesting boxes. And the eggs look a normal egg. So can anyone tell me why they haven't hatched, I'm sure there fertilized cause my rooster mates her requlary.
I believe if they were going to hatch they already would have...it only takes 21 days....I don't have any idea why they wouldn't hatch...things just happen sometimes... bacteria, etc....I would take them away...this is hard on the hen sitting so long....~Charm
Maybe the rooster did not perform well. If you got them as fertilized eggs from someone, they should have hatched by now. Maybe she did not stay on them enough to keep the chicks developing. Chris
After two months, it's definitely time to take the eggs away. If you have a source for less than a week old chicks, you could maybe pick up a few and slip under your hen at night, then take the eggs at the same time. How many hens do you have? Could be that your rooster just couldn't keep up? I started this spring with about 20 hens and one rooster. I had five broodies throughout the summer, setting on over 60 eggs total. I got six chicks - four out of one batch, two out of another. Most of the eggs never developed. I'm thinking it was due to not enough rooster to go around.
