Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

The first of the Cochin girls has been pressed down in a nesting box for a day and a half now. I took her out twice today to just see how serious she was and she floated around in circles like the Goodyear blimp for a minute then scurried back to her nesting box. I've been saving eggs for the incubator and probably have a dozen to give her but I also have 6 Cochin eggs going into lockdown on Sunday. The only thing scaring me is that the other two Cochin girls spent A LOT of time on their egg today and Harley has been squeezing into nesting boxes with them to encourage this! I'm scared I'm going to end up with 3 brooding at once!

Lola the zombie

Well I'm not sure how well this girl is going to do. I dragged her out of the nesting box yesterday first thing and found an egg stuck in her butt feathers lol. She hadn't been sitting on eggs so not sure if she laid it or stole it but it was literally stuck and I ripped a few feathers out freeing it. Threw her outside and she was back in her box within a minute. So I moved her to a nice private nest and gave her a few golf balls plus the egg she had. She seemed to settle in so I left her. Came back out an hour later and she was back in her nesting box. I decided it wouldn't be a big deal to leave her there so I gave her 8 more eggs and she seemed happy. She won't seem to come out on her own so I dragged her out this morning and found she had eaten an egg. One egg has dried yolk on it and she has sticky feathers on her belly so maybe it was an accident? Then she came back in and got into the wrong nesting box and did that cute rocking motion while sitting on absolutely nothing. So I guess I will play it by ear! Any suggestions? I'm thinking if one more egg disappears then she's done.

Cat carriers are great. I just had a girl go broody in the spot that 14 other hens like to lay in... always a recipe for broken eggs. I gave her some eggs in a cat carrier, let her out twice a day to do her business and eat, and then put her back in when she's done. She keeps wanting to go back to the communal egg deposit nest, but she'll figure it out eventually.

I would also suggest an enclosure of some kind,
I used a dog crate for this First timer, left it closed for couple days, until I was sure she would stay, then just left it open so she could have a dust bath. The crate was in a separate pen.
She is sitting again, this time without the crate just in a separate pen, but I have removed any other nest boxes, to cut down on confusion

Some of the bigger birds I found just ended up breaking the eggs, just too heavy, perhaps that's your problem.

Yes I do actually think that's what happened @kenya the Cochin girls are big and clumsy. I also think the egg she broke was the one I found stuck in her feathers so maybe it had already been cracked.
I decided to just watch for a couple days for two reasons...#1 she is in a "middle" nesting box and everyone knows those boxes are the least desirable lol. Any hen that knows anything knows that the two outside boxes in the row are where all the best eggs get laid and where the line ups form each morning. #2 Little and her chick and the two 9 week olds are still residing in the small room of the coop where I have two built-in broody/brooder cages. So one of those groups would need to be relocated and I think that's why the broody didn't want to be there. So far she's doing very well and all the others sneak glances from a distance but don't bother her. She refuses to get off the nest though. I have to lift her off twice a day.

Ugggggh

I pulled a crushed egg out from under this girl last night. Due to hatch in 2-3 days. Heart breaking. I heard her crush it while I was in there putting to bed. It had got very hot and humid very fast and she was jostling around so I was setting a small fan up for her. Too late I guess. So she started with 9 eggs. He has 3 left but I'm pretty sure one is a quitter. This is the 3rd egg she has crushed. Im just hoping she hatches something because I'm ready to be done with this girl!

Your hatch sounds so much like mine, if it wasn't that she had a previous 100% hatch I would blame her, but this way I wonder about other external effects and of course does she know something we don't and the eggs weren't developing the way they should or not at all, is always a possibility

I really feel the weather has a lot to do with it. My girl that just hatched steam rollered 2 and they shrink wrapped. day 21 eggs because of the heat I think and a 3rd chick made it out but died. The last week she just got very fidgety.
Sorry.

Happy wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 23, 2017 8:54 am

Ugggggh

I pulled a crushed egg out from under this girl last night. Due to hatch in 2-3 days. Heart breaking. I heard her crush it while I was in there putting to bed. It had got very hot and humid very fast and she was jostling around so I was setting a small fan up for her. Too late I guess. So she started with 9 eggs. He has 3 left but I'm pretty sure one is a quitter. This is the 3rd egg she has crushed. Im just hoping she hatches something because I'm ready to be done with this girl!

That is sad. Fingers crossed that there are no more mishaps and that at least two eggs hatch successfully. Was there a chick developed in the egg she crushed?