Post by epitts75 on Jul 17, 2008 6:02:27 GMT -5
Last night dh decided to mow down an area of tall weeds in our back yard. He hadn't gotten a few feet when a banty hen who we haven't seen in some time flew out from the weeds squawking up a storm. He stopped the tractor and took a break while we waited for Chickabit to go back to her nest. She did not however and we were starting to get a little nervous that she would abandon the nest. Dh went exploring to find the nest. He couldn't see anything it was so well hidden, but heard a cracking sound when he stepped backward. He brought me 3 eggs, cracked, with almost fully developed chicks inside. They could not have been more than a day or two away from hatching. We took the other 7 eggs and put them in the house under a heat lamp. We've adjusted the temp to be 100 consistently and I put a cup of water and a wet washcloth for humidity in the box. We covered it with some garden row cover material to help keep the moisture in.
We've never hatched out chicks before...never even had chicks hatch under a broody here yet. I really hope these guys hatch, but I am afraid they got cold for too long. We weren't watching the clock but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than 30 minutes that she was off the nest.
We do have 3 other hens setting on nests right now. We thought about putting the eggs under one of those chickens but we didn't want them to abandon the eggs they are on now. Most have just started to set and these are almost done.
I'm very nervous this won't happen and so sad that we disrupted poor Chickabit.
Ellen
We've never hatched out chicks before...never even had chicks hatch under a broody here yet. I really hope these guys hatch, but I am afraid they got cold for too long. We weren't watching the clock but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than 30 minutes that she was off the nest.
We do have 3 other hens setting on nests right now. We thought about putting the eggs under one of those chickens but we didn't want them to abandon the eggs they are on now. Most have just started to set and these are almost done.
I'm very nervous this won't happen and so sad that we disrupted poor Chickabit.
Ellen