Opinions Needed ! Incubating an abandoned Egg, Unsure of what day it's on !

[CuriousAmateur]

Hello ! First post on this website, I am hoping that some people have some words of advice for my situation.

Note : Am new to incubating and raising chicks overall.

So as of near a month ago, one of the bantams of the coop went broody. She had a clutch of about 4ish eggs but the numbers kept increasing as the meaner hens would sit atop of her and lay their eggs then wander off to graze. We left her alone for a couple days and her clutch had increased to 7 ! Candled them and they were all at different stages of development. This happened a few more times and we stopped it at about 10 eggs.

Fast forward to today, the bantam has 3 chicks less than a week old. She had abandoned the rest of her clutch, refusing to sit on them to focus on her chicks. Took me an hour to realize, and so I took the eggs and placed them in the others in an incubator after candling.

I did the water test with the eggs that seemed fuller and darker, made sure the water was warm, 2 were viable and 1 wasn't according to this test. So I placed the viable ones in a mini brinsea incubator.

Next day, one of them smells off, I presume it dead and toss it. The other had some shadows moving so I left it. I was hopeful. On the day of posting this, it's nearly been 2 days since tossing the other and I see no internal pip. (I left the air pocket facing towards the outside of the incubator so that I can candle it without opening the incubator.) Should I be worried ?? I don't know what day it's on but I assumed lock down and set the humidity according to that. RH at 70%.

Is there anything else I should be doing that I'm currently not ? The egg isn't making any noise, I am hoping that it's been busy absorbing it's yolk or something. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks !

Update : The air pocket does not look 'heart shaped' but it certainly is bigger ! And I did a quick candle, must've been less than 20 seconds that the egg was out of the incubator but the chick is moving at least.

This is the only egg in the incubator that is this close to pipping, any tips on how to keep them from being too lonely ? My other batch is only on day 10.

 

[mcdze]

loneliness isnt the problem per-se, the problem is they will have learning deficits .. for example, i have one like that which is about 6 weeks that cant even fly up on a perch and doesnt know how to search out food so i cant get it to even go in the coop yet .. it relies on 'me' to do everything for it, in other words, its way behind as far as integrating to the flock and is predator bait lol ..so, what id do is section off the brooder with wire and give it its own food, water for 2-3 days until its running around lively, then it should be fine with the others, just keep an eye on it for awhile and that should work out fine ..

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hello ! First post on this website, I am hoping that some people have some words of advice for my situation.

Note : Am new to incubating and raising chicks overall.

So as of near a month ago, one of the bantams of the coop went broody. She had a clutch of about 4ish eggs but the numbers kept increasing as the meaner hens would sit atop of her and lay their eggs then wander off to graze. We left her alone for a couple days and her clutch had increased to 7 ! Candled them and they were all at different stages of development. This happened a few more times and we stopped it at about 10 eggs.

Fast forward to today, the bantam has 3 chicks less than a week old. She had abandoned the rest of her clutch, refusing to sit on them to focus on her chicks. Took me an hour to realize, and so I took the eggs and placed them in the others in an incubator after candling.

I did the water test with the eggs that seemed fuller and darker, made sure the water was warm, 2 were viable and 1 wasn't according to this test. So I placed the viable ones in a mini brinsea incubator.

Next day, one of them smells off, I presume it dead and toss it. The other had some shadows moving so I left it. I was hopeful. On the day of posting this, it's nearly been 2 days since tossing the other and I see no internal pip. (I left the air pocket facing towards the outside of the incubator so that I can candle it without opening the incubator.) Should I be worried ?? I don't know what day it's on but I assumed lock down and set the humidity according to that. RH at 70%.

Is there anything else I should be doing that I'm currently not ? The egg isn't making any noise, I am hoping that it's been busy absorbing it's yolk or something. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks !

Update : The air pocket does not look 'heart shaped' but it certainly is bigger ! And I did a quick candle, must've been less than 20 seconds that the egg was out of the incubator but the chick is moving at least.

This is the only egg in the incubator that is this close to pipping, any tips on how to keep them from being too lonely ? My other batch is only on day 10.

Once it has hatched, you may be able to give it a little mirror. This can sometimes help

For future reference, water testing isn't great, it isn't reliable and it can introduce bacteria to the egg. Candling with light is a much fairer test, if in doubt, leave them in.
The only thing you can really right now is wait and watch

Good luck!

 

[BDutch]

BelivedBirds is right. Wait and see if it hatches. If it doest it has been a lesson for the next time.

If it hatches: bring it up seperately until she/he is full grown or sell it to someone who has chicks of the same age or a few days younger. It’s not a good idea to put her in the flock as a chick. She wil be harassed or even worse.

Best to do in the future imho: take away all eggs from the nest and mark a date. Store the eggs point down under an angle and change the angle daily. If you have a broody sitting steady for 2 days then give her 5 -10 marked eggs. Take away new laid eggs from others.
Or put her apart with wire if you have the space a let her breed in a small coop/run. But don’t move her after she got the hatching eggs.
She needs to have the possibility to go out to eat, poop and stretch her legs once a day. She will return to the nest within approx ½ hour.

 

[CuriousAmateur]

Once it has hatched, you may be able to give it a little mirror. This can sometimes help

For future reference, water testing isn't great, it isn't reliable and it can introduce bacteria to the egg. Candling with light is a much fairer test, if in doubt, leave them in.
The only thing you can really right now is wait and watch

Good luck!

Oh, good to know ! I wasn't aware that the water test could hurt as long as the water wasn't cold. Will definitely keep this in mind for next time.

The mirror idea sounds great ! Thank you !