Broody chicken questions

I found how to break a broody of her broody-ness give the poor thing a fright.

So I had her five eggs without her sitting on them.

Fortunately, yesterday I found that one of my Black Australorps had gone broody.

So my main question is, how late in the eggs development will a broody hatch eggs successfully?

The eggs are 10 days into incubation so her clock will be wrong for when its time to sit tight.

I have put china eggs into the silkies nest so if she goes back to it I can give her a few more eggs from the bator to hatch but as she is a flighty thing, methinks she is off the nest for good.

Oh yeh, and how many eggs will a large hen hatch? I gave the silkies five each but she is double the size so if she is good for late stage eggs I will give her five more eggs out of the bator. Its soooo much easier to raise chicks when they have a mum to do it for me

A large hen can hatch 20 eggs sometimes more you just dont want to push it and have some break

Maidenwolf wrote:A large hen can hatch 20 eggs sometimes more you just dont want to push it and have some break

The silkie went back to her nest so gave her back her eggs and she hatched 4 of them and raised them great.

The Australorp I gave 10 eggs and she did great up to the day of hatching when I checked on her to be met wit the mother of all stinks..................

Upon lifting her I found four live chicks, two or three or four smashed flat chicks and a couple of un hatched eggs. And she was all slicked with foul gunk.

OMG it was awful!

So I moved her to a new nest, tucked her live chicks under her wings and put the eggs in the bator. There were 12 eggs due to hatch at the same time hers were so throughout the day I took each chick as it hatched and tucked it under her wings.

By the time the day was out she had 10 live uns.

The rest of the eggs failed to hatch but she raised her chicks like a champ!

I think I will be incubating eggs when the next broody happens, give her china eggs and when the chicks hatch will tuck them under her wings and take out the china eggs, one by one.

Awww poor babies.. At least the hen was trying. i think incubating the eggs is a much better idea. Good luck!! Blessed Be!!