I Have Grand-Chicks!!!! YAY!!

[baymule]

I had a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte go broody several weeks ago. Since I don't have a rooster, I got fertile eggs from a friend that does have a rooster. She brought me 7 eggs. The hen is off the nest, broken eggshells and is growling at me like a junkyard dawg. I want to see the babies so bad!

There are 2 eggs left in the nest, I guess they are no good? Or did she just get tired of setting? I guess if I go pick them up, they will turn out to be exploders and bomb me with rotten egg.

I am so excited! I have Grand-Chicks!!

 

[canesisters]

OH THAT IS WONDERFUL!!! YEA!!!

The leftover eggs probably are no good. You might want to let them sit a day or so - just in case. If you handle them carefully you should have no problem colecting and disposing them. (mine go deep into the compost pile).
Unless your hen is particularly 'big & bad' you should be able to get a look at the chicks. Just be careful picking her up. Last year (my hen's first broody hatch) when I moved her to get the first peek at the chicks, I picked up a chick with her. It was up under her wing instead of under her and dropped off when she was about a foot above the nest! Luckly it wasn't harmed.


And - of course... PICTS!!!!!!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Cane, I killed a chick one time doing that. It was under the wing and I crushed it when I picked the hen up to see the chicks. So Bay, she gave you a real good warning. Be careful if you pick her up. You can do it, but be very careful before you squeeze or put much weight on it.

It is highly unlikely those eggs are rotten. Some eggs just don't hatch, even if you, the rooster, and the hen do everything right. For the eggs to get rotten, bacteria has to get inside. That does not happen that often with those eggs. But when it does happen, you know it.

The hen talks to the chicks while they are still in the shell. Unless the first to hatch are starving and dying of thirst, she's not likely to leave the nest before the hatch is over. I usually open the unhatched eggs to see when the chick stopped. Often they are clear, never started, but some have fully developed chicks that just did not pip. Some are just not meant to make it.

 

[baymule]

The hen is in the brooder cage that is facing out in the (now) duck pen. I brooded the ducks in it. When my DH got home from work, I caught the chicks and hen, putting them in separate cages, and we moved the brooder cage out of the duck pen. Then we put the hen and her FIVE chicks back in the brooder cage.

There are 3 red chicks and 2 chipmunk striped chicks. The hen is a real good momma. In the morning, I'll let the hen and chicks out to scratch in the yard. I'll keep the layer hens put up for awhile, I don't let them out every day anyway.

I tossed the unhatched eggs over the fence. When I picked up the hen to move her, her full plump breast has wasted down to a hatchet blade. Poor thing, she'll have to eat a lot to gain her weight back. The chicks are so darn cute!!

 

[Smart Red]

Pictures! Thank you. That is the best way to care for chicks -- let the momma do all the work.

 

[so lucky]

So cute! Do we know what kind of chicks you have?

 

[baymule]

The chicks are mixed breed. Just barnyard mutts from a friend, but I am thrilled to have a momma hen with her chicks, especially since out grand daughter is coming tomorrow evening. That girl makes a bee line for the chickens when she gets here.