Broody Hen Stopped Sitting - Eggs Started Hatching - Now What?

[AquaCluck]

Yes, I'm a new bird here. I've been a regular reader for years now.

Not sure how to put all this in the title.

A broody hen hatched 6 chicks. Still has 9 eggs. The eggs were laid at different times from 3 different hens. Stopped sitting on the eggs. Four days later a chick starts to hatch. He started last night and was half out today. Unfortunately I didn't check the hen and chicks this morning. The one that half hatched died. Probably due to a lack of humidity. I noticed another egg was pipped and there's scratching and peeping in it. Since she's not sitting on them at all I thought it best to bring the eggs in.

I don't current have the means to do an actual incubator and I'm not certain how many left over eggs are actually fertilized. My husband candled them last week and we didn't mark them. I'm curious as to the best course of action now. Keep them warm and humid? Give them another week or so?

I've read a lot about keeping the temp even and the humidity at such and such and so on, so how on earth did these eggs survive as long as they have without her attention?

This is my first experience with hatching eggs. I've never had a broody hen successfully sit on a fertilized clutch.

 

[BirdGirl2004]

First and foremost...! I hope that you enjoy this site as much as the rest of us do! I have learned SOOO much from this site, and hope that you do too!

I think that you should read up on incubators, because this is your best bet for the chicks to live!

Look at this site: (great info)

How To Incubate & Hatch Chicken Eggs - Just 21 Days From Egg To ...

Hope this helped a little...

Good luck!

 

[Zinjifrah]

If you have a heat pad that you can regulate temperature with, or a heat lamp, you can try to set up a temporary 'hatching' area with some damp towels to create humidity. I'd say candle the eggs again, so you can get rid of any that aren't fertile/developing, that way you're not wondering about eggs that aren't ever going to hatch. I'm not an expert, however! This is just my suggestion. I can't tell you how they survived... maybe someone else had been sitting on them a bit, maybe it's just been warm enough that they survived. Here, it's over 100 - I suspect if I had any fertile eggs (none of mine are laying yet) I could practically just leave them outside and they'd develop, if they didn't get cooked!

 

[AquaCluck]

Yes, it's been 85+ and well into the 90's for the last week or so. She stopped sitting consistently over a week ago when the first 5 hatched though so I figured they'd stop developing. I'm shocked they're still trying to hatch. Will recandle them.

 

[AquaCluck]

Yesterday's pipper is out as of this morning. Good set of lungs, peeping very loudly! Removed the two dud eggs and marked the remaining four. I'm guessing the one that didn't make it out in the coop yesterday got too dry. Good thing I brought the rest in.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Looks like you're doing good. You may be able to hatch these eggs and (if they're not too many days apart from your first batch) slip the chicks under the mother hen at night after they dry. She might accept them and then you wouldn't need a brooder.