Broody Hatching -- Candling Eggs on Day 10

My Buff Orpington went broody and I decided to try hatching under her. The first attempt failed miserably,  and I put some eggs under her that had been destined for breakfast.

Waiting was really hard, but Day 10 is here and it is time to candle the eggs. Woo hoo!

I waited until nightfall when the chickens were settled into their roost and reluctant to stir themselves to investigate my mysterious activities. I crept up the broody cage and gently slipped eggs out from under Buffy. She was in a good mood and only pecked me a few dozen times, hardly removing any fingers.

Like everything else on my little chickeny ranch, my egg candler is improvised from available parts. In this case, I used a toilet paper tube and an LED flashlight.

Improvised Egg Candler

How to Use Improvised Egg Candler

This is what professional egg candlers look like:

One egg was pretty porous and did not seem to have any development. The other three looked about right for Day 10.

Egg Day 10

For now, I left the questionable egg on the nest, in case I learn more about candling eggs. I put the others back and rescued my fingers from the furious fowl.

There are many, many discussions on BackYardChickens.com about hatching chicks and embryo development. BYC member silkiechicken posted this excellent collection of egg candling pictures. I used it to identify the lack of development in the porous egg and the apparent health of the other eggs. BYC member shookpoultry posted this amazing animated image of embryo development.

Go Buffy go!

Update: Recandled porous egg. Think it may be viable after all. The general wisdom at BackYardChickens.com is that any egg that *might* be viable should be given a chance.

Porous egg has defined air cell and dark center

Update: Success! One hatched!! The porous one was as dead as the others. I think two weeks on the kitchen counter is not good for hatching viability....

Broody Hatching Disaster

I placed eggs under my broody buff orpington just 3 days ago. I already have a failed hatch. 100% failed. Argh!

Worse, it is a mystery. But I have my suspicions....

I went to remove Buffy from the nest today so she could get some food, water, and exercise. She squawked and pecked and fussed and huffed. But once she was off the nest there were no eggs to be found!

Eight eggs vanished into thin air. There were no sticky spots. There were no eggshells. There were no signs of struggle. Just empty space where my carefully hoarded eggs used to be.

Doctor Dolittle and I examined the coop for evidence and found none, so we fell back on speculation. We considered human theft, but rejected that due to the undisturbed gate of annoyance and latching system of despair. We considered snakes due to the recent sighting of both copperhead and cottonmouth venomous snakes, but rejected it since Buffy would probably have blinded them or been bitten. We considered crows, rats, opossums, raccoons, and foxes, but rejected all of them since Buffy would have forced them to deal with her before surrendering the eggs. We reluctantly considered that Buffy might be the culprit.

Another egg eater? Were her eggs too thin for her enormous bulk? Did she grow so ravenous that she consumed her potential offspring?

Could be....

So, for now Buffy and her new clutch of randomly selected eggs are residing in chicken jail with food and water right in front of her. This ought to reduce possible predation by snakes, crows, rats, opossums, raccoons, foxes, and the other chickens. Vigorous patrols by Doctor Dolittle and a certain part-time chicken farmer should limit the risk of two-legged predators. This leaves Buffy.

If Buffy eats these eggs, then she will be fired as a mommy chicken. Lucky for her we now have two desirable nest boxes that the other hens will actually use.

Yet another high maintenance hen. *sigh*


Update: The eggs were still under her this morning. But she rejected the nest box in favor of the jail floor which has lots of wood shavings. Doc says she probably got too warm.

Update: People keep saying it must be a snake because of no mess and that a hen in broody trance will not notice a snake under her. I really appreciate this information, but I hope you will forgive me for wishing it not to be so, especially since the cottonmouth is still at large. Snakes are creepy.

Update: Learning the new routine.

Update: Y'all were right. I was wrong. It was a snake. Here is the proof.

Broody Orange Pancake

Buffy the Orange Pancake Chicken

When I went to gather eggs this morning all the chickens ran out, except for Buffy who was on the nest. She looked flat as a pancake and I had to wonder if she was broody again. Hooray?

I have been saving Buffy's eggs for my incubator test. I will do the test as soon as I build the incubator. Real Soon Now. Yeah, right.

But life intervened and I had to deal with work and animals and people and stuff. Finally got home at oh-dark-hundred to close the coop. Guess who was still on the nest....

My fluffy orange girl was still there, still looking like a pancake, still giving me the stink eye.

I collected my hatching stash and ran back out. Placed one egg under her, collected a peck. Placed another egg, got another peck. Nudged her aside, placed the rest of the eggs, removed the ceramic egg, and collected a peck and a stink eye and a bonus BAAAAAWK.

Mission accomplished! Now I just need to build the incubator in case she knocks off early....


Update: This clutch ended disastrously.

Light at the end of the tunnel -- less broody hen

The broody hen has been a little more cooperative recently. Yesterday she was off the nest and waiting to exit the coop with the other hens. She went through her dust bathing and eating routine. She rejected the rooster's advances again.

Last night she got on the nest for a while, but later perched on the roost. Yay!

I wondered if she was pulling another sneaky trick, but today she was out with the hens again today.

Tentative verdict: cooler cage works, but it takes a week or so.

Sneaky Broody Hen

My broody hen was on the nest this morning, warming the eggs put there by all my other hens. I took advantage of the full production by putting her in the run and closing the coop.

She acted like this was her fondest wish. She ate the black oil sunflower seeds and the scrambled eggs from my breakfast error. She lolled in the dust and generally gave every impression of sybaritic pleasure.

At first she was careful to stay with the flock. But as the day wore on, she started trying to slip into the coop unnoticed. When she heard me nearby in the yard she would casually vacate the top of the chicken ladder by the closed coop door and casually walk as fast as she could back to the chicken run.

Knowing the outcome in advance, I opened the coop and went to work on another part of my yard for about 5 minutes. When I returned she made no pretense of staying with the flock. Instead she boldly remained on the nest.

I placed her back in the cooler cage. She seemed unsurprised and maybe a little smug that her subterfuge had worked once. Once.

I am starting to consider some additions to my coop. I may build a shelf to hold the cooler cage by the roost. I am also thinking about building another nest box above or below the current nest box. I need to think about this some more as my carpentry skills are similar to my breakfast skills....

Broody, broody, broody

The hen is still broody even though she gets put in the cooler cage every day. I think I need to keep this up for a while, certainly longer than I expected. At least she is not blocking the nest.

The rooster is innocent in all this. I kicked her off the nest last night and the rooster did his "Hey Baby" dance. She growled at him and ran away. Guess she had a headache.

Broody hen in the cooler

My earlier plan to break my broody hen by locking her up with the rooster failed. I guess she was not sexy enough for him and he did not rise to the occasion.

My options were dunk the broody hen in cold water or to put her in a suspended cage to chill out. With the recent rain, I decided that the cage was a safer choice.

Locked the broody hen in a wire cage sitting on top of the wire tractor. This gave her nothing to stand on but wire and let the cold wind blow up her bottom. She was stressed by flock separation until they started climbing on the tractor. Once she was the center of attention, she proudly consumed her private bowl of oatmeal.

One hen that she had just kicked out of the nest got her revenge. She perched on the cage top and sat over the broody hen's head. Ah, the subtle pleasure of symbolic communication!

The broody hen was still interested in the nest box when I let her join the flock in the coop. She decided to roost instead when I threatened to make ugly faces at her, but I suspect she will be the nest tyrant by morning.

Try try again....

Update: She was on the nest in the morning. I put her in the "cooler" and the weather cooperated. Unfortunately, she did not cooperate at nightfall. When I let her out she went right back to the nest. Sticking with the plan....

Testing the "Rooster Cure" for Broody Hen

One of my hens has gone broody. This is a nuisance since she is kicking the other hens out of the nest box.

So far the following things were tried and failed:

• Physically remove the broody hen from the nest. She simply returned when I was not looking.
• Isolate her in the tractor. She just made a nest in the tractor. As soon as she was released, she dashed to the nest box in the coop.
• Put her in the tractor with the rooster. Test in progress.

Maybe she is not alluring enough or maybe the rooster needs Chicken Viagra. The rooster has not mounted the broody hen while I was watching, so I will give it one more day. If she is still broody, then there are two more ideas I read about.

Both ideas are based on the theory that warm hens are broody or something. So if the hen is cool, then the broodiness will pass.

• Dunk her in cold water. This ought to be comical in a Three Stooges kind of way. 
• Put her in a suspended wire-bottomed cage so she gets a lot of air up her hind end. This should be less stressful than the cold water, but may take a lot longer.

For now, just wait and see. Stay tuned for the outcome!

Still Broody

This morning I evicted my broody hen, but by evening she was back on the nest trying to hatch her latest creation and the fake egg. So I have devised a clever plan....

I moved the tractor into the chicken run. Tomorrow I will put her in the tractor by herself.

Next step, observe her behavior. If she gets off the tractor nest, then let her out and observe her some more.

If she stays on the tractor nest or camps out in the coop nest, then she spends another day in the tractor -- with the rooster.

Update: The tractor was a big sensation. All the girls had to check it out and climb on top. The broody hen wanted desperately to get out. She eventually calmed down and ate her food, much to the consternation of the others who could not steal it. After a while she went to lay on the tractor nest.

Update 2: Let her out this evening and she had a quick scratch through the treats and then zip! right to the nest. I found her trying to hatch the ceramic egg a few minutes ago.

Tomorrow I will try out the rooster cure.

Windy, Broody

My birds are a little disturbed. We had a lot of wind today (and beans were not a factor). The sides of the coop were rattling in the breeze and the pop door was hard to open because of plastic sheet in the way.

They eventually made their way out of the coop, except for Buffy. Buffy is my Buff Orpington and she decided to get broody today. She sat on the nest all day and fluffed up and growled whenever I got close. I think that she dropped an egg in the afternoon, though I did not retrieve it until the evening.

I may need to lock her up in a cage with the rooster. That will change her behavior!

Update: She was on the nest again, fending off all others. I picked her up and dropped her in the run. She decided to recover her dignity by dining on pellets. She has been giving me dirty looks all day.