What are you currently incubating/brooding?

[Munch]

We are about to incubate chocolate frizzle pekins

[jessmorris]

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Nice.

[jessmorris]

I'm going to try again too. Must be mad.

[jessmorris]

I've just sown some too. I looked out this morning and the sparrows were joyfully having a dust bath along my carefully sown row.....

[petal]

We are about to incubate chocolate frizzle pekins

careful they don't melt!!........

[adtravels]

Hi
Just put 6 lavender leghorns and 12 barred wyandotte eggs in a brinsea polyhatch, I am doing it in school for my classes but aim to keep and raise the birds at home. The eggs came from ebay so it will be a lottery. I have the mass of all the eggs and aim to record the information on a spreadsheet with my science club!

[petal]

did they hatch adtravels? our brinsea 40 has a mixture of brahma, wyandotte bantam, pekin, faverolle but not as good a hatch as we normally have- some infertiles for the first time ever from the orpington pen. cockerel has been warned.
In the corti we have duck eggs- keep fingers crossed we might finally have ducklings this year.
we have a gold silkie sat on pekin eggs.
june the orpington has about 20 something 3 week old chicks clambouring all over her.
11 getting big turkey poults in the barn.

[nmayhew]

It would seem we are now brooding some Light Sussex eggs, albeit both unexpectedly and involuntarily!

Primrose has been glued to the nest box for the second day, and beaked me when I put my hand in.

This is not planned and I don't really now what to do. Do I just barge her out of the way and nab the eggs? I don't have any specialist hatching / incubating area or facilities, just their large cage, their house and their patch of field for when they free range during the day...

Cheers

Nick

[RichmondHens]

Do you want to hatch or don't you? Are the eggs fertile (ie do you have a cock with the hens)? If you don't want to hatch take the eggs away and tip the hen off the nest. If you do (and the eggs are fertile) then ideally you need to separate her from the flock for the following reasons:

a) she will block the nestbox preventing other hens from laying
b) unless you mark the eggs you will be unable to tell the incubating ones from the freshly laid
c) hatching eggs will get trampled by incoming hens or broody protecting them

If you want to hatch then you will need to find suitable accommodation for your broody and chicks.

[jessmorris]

I have 3 cuckoo silkie eggs and one white silkie egg in the (sparkly new) incubator. Candled them yesterday and they all look clear. Boo.
Its getting a bit late this year to be doing any more hatching I guess....

[petal]

No, not at all but fertility does drop off from start of june onwards . the wierd weather has confused our ducks- they are all laying like crazy right now and going broody- eg: the muscovy is sat on 20 eggs with the most adorable soft downy nest you have ever seen! Hissing.....

[jessmorris]

Hmmm, thanks for the encouragement Petal :0) As I've lost one of my lovely game ladies I may have a trawl for some hatching eggs. Especially as Penny Pekin is down and growly in the sawdust again....

[nmayhew]

Do you want to hatch or don't you? Are the eggs fertile (ie do you have a cock with the hens)? If you don't want to hatch take the eggs away and tip the hen off the nest. If you do (and the eggs are fertile) then ideally you need to separate her from the flock for the following reasons:

a) she will block the nestbox preventing other hens from laying
b) unless you mark the eggs you will be unable to tell the incubating ones from the freshly laid
c) hatching eggs will get trampled by incoming hens or broody protecting them

If you want to hatch then you will need to find suitable accommodation for your broody and chicks.

Firstly thank you for your help and secondly sorry it took so long to say so.

The 5 hens live with a cockerel, and after some thought, we will not breed this year.

We have been taking eggs from underneath the broody one, but after reading that broodies can sometimes get out of condition we got worried and picked her up each day and put her out with the others...

However, once out the broody was then set upon by another hen, with another joining in; this has happened 3 days in a row now.

Apart from distressing, it is also odd because the broody was the biggest, and definitely 'boss hen', even though she was actually a lot less aggressive towards the other hens than her number 2...

(The cockerel comes over to calm things down but only after they have already fought...)

Why is the broody being attacked?

And should I just take the eggs from under her but otherwise leave her be?

Laying across all 5 is now down to 2 a day from 4-5 as well...

Thanks again,

Nick

[petal]

when a hen has been separate, the pecking order changes, this is normal behaviour and the cockerel normally steps in if it gets serious. collect eggs really regularly, continually turf her out of the box, pop a freezer cooler block under her to really get her to shift if she is stubborn and insists on sitting. i find just by continually chucking out of the nest box, removing eggs regularly, 99% of the time the habit can be broken.

[nmayhew]

thank you Petal

what you say makes perfect sense re the pecking order

and when i think back, when we initially introduced the cockerel, it was the one who is now aggressive to the broody that was most hostile to the new man, so it fits that she is getting angry with the "new" hen...

i'll persevere with turfing her out

cheers for your input

Nick