2 down

We put a hen on a dozen eggs  on 19th May .

We chekc daily on the broody hens ( currently 3 of them) to ensure they have enough food and water within easy reach.
And today , there had obviously been a bit of bother of some sort

2 of the eggs are no longer under the hen. Instead they have ended up by the feed, and one has been p***ped on.
And the eggs are cold.

We could try putting them back under the hen, but if she thinks 12 is too many she could push ( a different) pair of eggs out.

So the decision is to use the incubator.
Hopefully not for many days . Of course the eggs may have been left out for too long and the chicks have died.

We will know by the end of the weekend.

More Ducks ( hopefully)

There appears to be  good market for duck eggs. Our ducks are very sweet, and stupid . And not very good at consistently laying . Indian Runner ducks are better at consistently laying. And we have another broody hen.
So we kept the broody hen occupied , and sitting, on a couple of false eggs,- -real eggs, blown and then filled with plaster   -

And you can order eggs  on the internet - and a few days later they  arrived. 

So we replaced te plaster eggs with the real ones.

And she continues to brood on them. And the incubation period is 28 days.

And 28 days from putting them under the hen will be  26th June
So watch this space

2nd time lucky

the hen that was sitting and making broody-noises  didnt like the custom-arranged brooding environment

Not dark enough , not private enough. or something

So we have used one of the empty hen houses and set her up in there with a dozen eggs.

The only problem is  keeping an eye on things and ensuring food and water etc are topped up.

Watch this space  4weeks hence .

one hen a-stting

And one of the hens has gone broody - bit later than normal as its usually mid-April when this starts.
And as some of the hens are getting on a bit we may need to replace them.

So the chick run has been brought back into use, as she is sitting on some plaster eggs. If she is still sitting in the morning, we will put some real eggs under her.

broody rehoused

So the broody hen hasnt been particularly happy in the cage , be-towelled and sitting on eggs.
 So something must be done.  And it has been.

The various chick runs we have , had a bad winter and got a bit trached by the storms

So a bit of fixing , and the run is good enough.

And the broody hen and 12 eggs has been moved in.

incubator update

there was a good reason why the  remaining chick hadn't got out of the egg. whilst under the broody. ive no idea what it might be, but even with us breaking the shell  a little to help it out , it was unable to get out of the  shell and died.


the other one similarly struggled. And something isnt right - there was still some of the yolk sack  remaining in the shell .

 Usually chicks come out in a few hours. this one has taken 24 hours to exit the shell, and still hasn't fluffed up , dried off and stood up.

But it it still making an effort ,so we will keep it  warm in the incubator and see what happens.

And the remaining 4 eggs are coming to nothing . No cheeping from inside the egg. We  will have a look later today.its our first venture with  an incubator , so we suspect  there are some subtleties to doing it right that we have missed. probably the eggs got too hot or to cold sometimes over  the last 3 weeks.

But another hen has gone broody , so she is sitting on some eggs

chick update

  10 it is.

1 remaining chick has started to peck through the shell .

It has been transferred to the incubator  to see  how it will do .

Mother and 10 chicks doing well so far, and transferred to  a chick run. So we expeect them to be out and eating tomorrow

Update from the incubator later.

Sadly

The duckling was alive first thing this morning, but at lunchtime we found it dead in the run.
And the mother hen was still dutifully guarding it.

Either it wasn't strong enough to survive, or there was a problem anyway ( which is why it ended up in our pond)

At least it didnt get attacked by the local hoodies whilst it was alive.

Brooding

So a couple of hens have gone broody.
We've put one in a broody box . Heres the box

If you remove the lid

There are some eggs

The hen is taken off and given some space, food and water,  twice a day.

They will sit for 3 weeks .
 Watch this space

Gallussian resuscitation

The latin name for the domestic fowl is gallus gallus domesticus

its time to move the mother and the chicks to the outside run. So 7 have hatched. And when we looked ,the last one was half in and half out of its shell. 

What to do ? Put it on the grass and hope the mother would  keep it warm whilst it escaped from the rest of its shell and  then look after it or help it a bit. So we decided to help it a bit. 

In a plastic bowl floating on hot water ( to keep it warm) , gently removing the rest of the shell and then keeping it warm whilst it dried out.

And then successfully resuscitated  it was returned under the hen and , at the last look, was  starting to explore its new home  .

One Goose a-sitting

One of the geese  has gone broody - as well as the various  hens.



 
She has made a nest for herself and is sitting on one egg ( and , we think,  some broken china ) . But we haven't got a gander so the egg will be infertile.





So we leave her to it. We've no idea how long she will sit for, before realising that it is all to no avail .

But if you get too close you get hissed at.

5 at the final count

new chicks, new home 

Disappointingly we have ended up with 5 chicks , after her sitting on 11 eggs.
-1 'escaped' from under her early on, was found cold , and was removed
-1 chick died in the egg, not having developed properly
-3 were infertile

And to prove that in real life  it all isn't  nice and fluffy and sweet little chicks , one died shortly after emerging from the egg.

So 5 it is  .

2 so far

We looked this morning . 2 so far . One had been hatched a while and the other was very new and not yet fluffy.  And cheeping from within another egg.  So hopefully at least 3.

Watch this space !

Overdue

According to the calendar , the first batch of chicks should be coming along today . But as of 6pm, there seemed to be no sign of anything happening.
Except on close inspection of one of the eggs there is a small crack and some tweeting from inside the egg.  So the first one is one is on its way .