This should have posted on Sunday and I thought it had until I checked today. So I've added an update at the bottom.
This starts with my suspicions the last couple days that my BA/EE hen had started hiding eggs from me and I had been debating looking them up for a few days to get her laying in the coop again. But yesterday I went to lock up and she wasn't in the coop, so I went looking around for her thinking she had gone broody some where and could not find her. In the middle of the night I had a thought of a place I hadn't checked and I knew they had dug some dust bathing holes and some times hung around.
So I go and check this morning a sure enough there she was with a nice nest where blended into the surrounding dirt pretty well (she is a black hen). I reach under her and she freaks and runs off to the coop screaming her head off, so I begin collecting eggs in my shirt and counting them. She had 15 eggs, all hers because she is my only green layer. So I go inside with the news of her eggs and after spending all summer asking to be aloud to let one of the hens hatch eggs (over the course of the summer all 5 hens have been broody at least once, two of them twice) and after seeing the dedication it was decided that I would be aloud to give 3 eggs to her and 3 eggs to my 2nd time this summer broody buff bantam cochin.
So I candle the eggs and no one is showing signs of growth yet (if any had they would have been set before the others). Go out to the coop and catch and then recatch the BA/EE and put her in the cochin's side of the coop where she gets into a fight with the white cochin. So I close the pop door leaving the black mottled and white cochin outside so she can have a chance to calm down and settle on to a nest.
But she hasn't calmed down yet so all six eggs are under the buff cochin (which is a tight squeeze) and if the BA/EE does calm down today/tonight I'll give her three of the eggs and in about 20-21 days we should have babies!
The bantam buff cochin:
The BA/EE hen, who is mom to all the eggs:
and Dad to all the eggs, my EE rooster Red:
This starts with my suspicions the last couple days that my BA/EE hen had started hiding eggs from me and I had been debating looking them up for a few days to get her laying in the coop again. But yesterday I went to lock up and she wasn't in the coop, so I went looking around for her thinking she had gone broody some where and could not find her. In the middle of the night I had a thought of a place I hadn't checked and I knew they had dug some dust bathing holes and some times hung around.
So I go and check this morning a sure enough there she was with a nice nest where blended into the surrounding dirt pretty well (she is a black hen). I reach under her and she freaks and runs off to the coop screaming her head off, so I begin collecting eggs in my shirt and counting them. She had 15 eggs, all hers because she is my only green layer. So I go inside with the news of her eggs and after spending all summer asking to be aloud to let one of the hens hatch eggs (over the course of the summer all 5 hens have been broody at least once, two of them twice) and after seeing the dedication it was decided that I would be aloud to give 3 eggs to her and 3 eggs to my 2nd time this summer broody buff bantam cochin.
So I candle the eggs and no one is showing signs of growth yet (if any had they would have been set before the others). Go out to the coop and catch and then recatch the BA/EE and put her in the cochin's side of the coop where she gets into a fight with the white cochin. So I close the pop door leaving the black mottled and white cochin outside so she can have a chance to calm down and settle on to a nest.
But she hasn't calmed down yet so all six eggs are under the buff cochin (which is a tight squeeze) and if the BA/EE does calm down today/tonight I'll give her three of the eggs and in about 20-21 days we should have babies!
The bantam buff cochin:
The BA/EE hen, who is mom to all the eggs:
Now an update from today, the BA/EE hen never settled down and the buff cochin couldn't cover 6 eggs so 3 of the eggs where removed. Yesterday I candled and two appear to be developing but the other one one has me worried.
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