I went out to do my chickens for the night last night and checked on broody hen while I was out there and found 1 new chick. this morning there were two. broody americauna hen ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) yea!!! she has a few more eggs under her, we'll see if they all hatch. She had a rough 21 days on the nest. Other chickens got in and laid their eggs in her box, one time I found the eggs rolled out of the box another time she was locked out of her box for the day. new chicks ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) poor girl. I'm surprised she has any babies.
Congrats to the chicken mama. She's pretty and so are the babies. I don't know a thing about chickens, but what is the significance of the other chickens laying eggs in her nest? Is it harder to lay on more eggs?
Hi daisybeans, If the other chickens lay eggs in her nest the eggs, even if they are developing, most likely won't hatch. The hen knows that the eggs take 21 days to develop, and as soon as hers hatch, she leaves to go and teach them how to eat, drink, and survive in the Great Chicken Pen :-D (with the other grown up chickens) Then the eggs that were still developing end up dying because the hen isn't there to keep the eggs warm enough to survive It's a waste of some perfectly good eggs/chicks...
I don't have an incubator nor do I want to hand raise a batch of chicks (I just don't have time nor place to do so, right now). I can't reintroduce them to her after they hatch. She will not accept them. Edited: I don't have any way to candle them to see if they are duds or growing, either. the LAST thing you want in your incubator is an explosion from a rotten egg :'( the smell is awful and the clean up??? you may as well through the incubator away and get a new one.
I told my sister I had new chicks , but didn't know if I would get anymore seeing how topsy turvy her nesting experience was and she told me that the hen will sit on the nest for 3 days. so I just might get a few more. Yea!!!
So cute. Wish our quail would go broody, but it has been bred out of them. I would love to have a broody hen!
I went out to check on her this afternoon and she had one "pipping". Which means that the chick is starting to break out of the shell. it had a little hole in the shell from the chick pecking at it with its "egg tooth". I'm so excited that there will be another one. EJ, have you ever tried to use a silky bantam to raise a batch of quail eggs? They are used here to raise specialty chicks such as peafowl, guinea fowl, etc. My sister had a leghorn bantam set on a batch of americauna eggs and hatch them out. the hen was mean to the chicks and wasn't a good momma hen,so she had to rescue the last one(the only surviving one) and raise it in the house. Silkies are very good broody hens. It might be worth trying.
These are really cute Carolyn. It looks like one of them is quite adventurous already. Of course I just had to read this while having breakfast didn't I.
Well, I'm up to 3 chicks so far. Another one hatched today!!!! Pics as soon as I can. Hopefully there will be a couple more yet.
Lol,..Frank you can expect anything to surface in the Stew!!,..hope you were not having a boiled egg, . Carolyn, you are doing well,..more to go i hope!.
One of my friends had a batch of our eggs for her broody bantam to hatch and they did very well. Don't tempt me with more birds....as it is I keep trying to work out if we could manage a couple of hens.
EJ, you can't go wrong with a couple of hens, bantams or standards. If you get the bantams (for hatching the eggs) and you like eggs, just use 2 bantam eggs in place of 1 reg. egg. Both eat an abundance of pests. I have even seen my chickens eat snakes. They do a good job of keeping down ticks and fleas,also. See you can justify the need for them See they are a NEED not a want. easy as pie. Don't ya think?
