Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

A bit of an aside, but when I first put the eggs under this broody hen, I put all of the eggs I had collected in the last week from both hens. She kicked all of the other hen's eggs out of the nest and kept all of her own eggs (other hen is a Maran, so easy to tell the difference). Is that normal?? I've heard of people buying different hatching eggs and putting them under a broody so I was surprised that she kicked the other eggs out.

Mine will take anything I give them including turkey eggs!

@Killerbunny that's awesome! I guess my hen must be a bit of a snob lol.

They can be such Princesses!

I had a hen this year kill all her blue chicks, and only keep a black chick, then abandoned it after 3 weeks. She wont be allowed to go broody again! Yet my other hen will sit on everything, and even somewhat adopted the 3 week old chick and added it to her 6 that are a week younger! They have such personalities!!

I had a friend give me some guinea eggs one time to hatch out for him, my hens would not sit on the eggs.

So interesting. They really do all have their own personalities!!

My silkies will hatch anything! I just put 7 eggs under then yesterday, they snuggled down like they have always been there. Good luck!

@Kbr42 that's awesome! I have two little silkies right now and one is really looking like a pullet. Hopefully she is like your Silkies when she grows up

So I don't have any chicks yet.

I looked back in my notes and I put the eggs beside her at 7pm on June 25. She was sitting on them by the next morning so sometime over the course of the night she moved them under herself. This would have made 21 days somewhere between 7pm on July 16 and 7 am on July 17. Is there any hope that they could still hatch? I haven't candled them - I still need to learn how to do that.

What is the longest incubation period that you've had with a successful hatch? How much longer should I wait?

If and when there is no chance of these hatching, should I try to put some of my other hen's recent eggs under her and start over? She kicked them out of the nest the first time, but maybe if she has none of her own she will be willing to sit on the other ones. Is another three weeks going to be too hard on her?

I had a couple of thoughts of why the eggs might be no good:

I had read that fertility in Wyandottes can be low, does this sound right? Probably because of a less diverse gene pool?
Maybe the genetics on my hen and rooster are too close. They came from the same place, he said he had some different genetics but it's definitely within the realm of possibility. If this is the case I may have better luck with the Maran X. The rooster definitely favours the Maran hen too, I rarely see him breed the Wyandotte.

Maybe my eggs were sitting on the counter for too long before I put them under her. I wasn't expecting a broody hen so I hadn't been dating the eggs, maybe these ones had been sitting in the bowl for longer than I thought and we had eaten the newer eggs. I don't know. I might start dating all of my eggs just to make sure. I have dated and saved all of the most recent ones from my Maran so I know for sure how old they are.


Again, I am so appreciative of any input and advice, thank you!