Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Our first Broody Hens

Few weeks ago one of our hens went broody, she wouldn't move off the golf balls we have to train the new pullets....we don't have a rooster in that coop.... so I placed some of RT plus a few of the reds eggs in the nest...at least she wasn't wasting her time right....
 about 10 days later another hen joined her on the same nest....a few more days go by and we find three on the same nest....
they had spread the eggs out and were each sitting on a few, when one got off to eat the others covered her space.....

 day 21 comes around and we find this little one on the outside of the nest.... not one of the 3 hens showing any concern for it....
the next day nothing....day 23 we find 2 more one just hatching, with the hens trying to get them out.....
today is day 24 at this point I though I should get rid of the old eggs that didn't hatch only to find another little one...this time the hens were trying hard to keep me out of the nest lol
I did put it in the brooder with the others....the hens went right back on the nest :D


This is RT one of the hens who's eggs we placed under the broody hens, so far her eggs have had the best hatch rate even though some were more than a week old when we started hatching, 8 so far with 2 more still under.....we still have no clue what breed she is maybe a mix.....other than very fast and a great layer of large cream colored eggs lol 



update
just found chick #5 kicked out of the nest....how would one go about teaching motherhood skills to a hen anyhow???

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