pullusleggus Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 I'm looking for more advice please. My hen has been broody for about 1 week. Initially she was sitting on 2 eggs and caring for them well. Yesterday, having finally put a broody box together and moved her into it the previous day, I exchanged her 2 eggs for 6 hatching eggs. Today I have come home to find 1 egg broken, 3 eggs on the edge of the nest cold and 2 eggs under her. I should probably say that her broody box is rather big and it took her about 24 hours to move the original eggs from the side I had put them to back under herself again. I have put the remaining 5 eggs in a lasagne dish (!) lined with a towel and placed her back on again. I plan to candle them in a few days to see which, if any, have survived their ordeal. I'm hoping the dish prevents any from rolling away in the meantime. My question is - if none of the eggs have survived, or even if 1 or 2 survive but later get broken - is it likely that starting again with a smaller box set-up and fresh eggs could possibly result in chicks? In particular I'm wondering if 3 weeks+ is pushing it and likely to be the point at which she gives up being broody whether she still has eggs left to hatch or not. By the way I'm not interested in using an incubator as I really want the whole mother hen experience if possible. Thanks! T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatsCube Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 As it happened straight away very early in development I don't see it being a problem. I had a very similar thing, I removed the divided between the two nesting boxes to give my girl more room so she could have food and water bowls next to her, and when I next checked on her she had re-arranged everything to suit her and half the eggs were not properly under her and were cold. I got a cake tin and padded it with newspaper and popped it under her, she has sat happily on them since. Candling them at 8 days showed active chicks inside Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pullusleggus Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 Ooh thank you CatsCube. I do hope it'll work. Shame I can't glue the broken one back together again though! T Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
