On time, 21 days after my egg tragedy, I was prepared for a new strategy. Since moving the hen and eggs a day before their due date didn’t work, and leaving them alone last year only gave me a small survival rate, I was ready with a new idea.
The plan is to let the hen remain where she is, on her nest box, happily setting on ten eggs. As they hatch, I’m going to kidnap… chicknap… each one and bring it to the house. The hen will continue to lay on the remainder of the eggs. Once they are all hatched, I will see if she wants to take them back, but let them and her live temporarily in my woodshed. If she doesn’t want them, no big deal, I will treat them as if they’ve arrived in the mail, motherless. I will keep them separate, which will create problems as they are older… but, hopefully, keep them safer from cats, dogs, and the bald eagle that loves to sit in a nearby cottonwood.
So… I was very excited to see this, this afternoon.
See that egg? The chick is beginning to pip! Yay! Now the whole process can take an hour or twelve… so I didn’t touch it, but returned to the house. Two hours later, I returned, unfortunately to a partially hatched chick, now dead.
What happened?
Who knows?
Shit happens. Calves die, pups die, lambs die. It sucks.
There’s still nine eggs under my broody hen, but I’ve just hiked out there in the moonlight and nothing seems to be happening. We will see if I wake to any chicks in the morning… keeping my fingers crossed.
Find me here!
I am learning a lot of interesting things here about chickens and hatching out chicks that I never knew, even that old Roosters may be the problem!! There is more to it than I ever imagined! I am enjoying it a lot. ;-}
It is my understanding that old hens and old roosters are a poor combination for healthy hatches. I don’t know what your chicken population is like, just know that things can go wonky with age! Hope things look up with your little chickies!
Good luck with those chicks! Chick lives matter, too!
Anxious to hear if any others made it! Thanks Carol for sharing all parts of life! Life is hard sometimes that is reality but we keep looking up or under in this case haha! Hope you get a live one!
Sad, I know what it’s like to wait for the “hatch” & loose little ones, good luck with the rest of the egg babies!