After 5 days of no phone or internet, I can finally post to my blog again!
Our chicks are all laying, and we have acquired a rooster - which means our eggs are now fertilized and hatchable. But we were quite shocked when one we hatched (Leghorn Ameracauna mix) started brooding the first of the month. (For non-chicken owners, that means a hen is gathering eggs to set/sit on for hatching.) That's quite young to be doing that. And since chickens all tend to use the same nesting area or two, not matter how many are available, that means ALL the eggs wind up under the setting hen. Unless you mark them, lift up Momma hen's bottom and pull out the unmarked ones every day WITHOUT getting your hand pecked to a blood pulp. I used a shovel once as a guard between the hen and myself, and still got at least one nasty peck. So brooding hens are never a great thing unless you can find a way to isolate them and their eggs from the rest of the flock. And right now, that's not an option.
But years ago, I read that you could put a curtain up over the nesting box - and no other chicken would go inside to lay. I decided to give it a try.
We took an old piece of fabric (and every time I see it I wished I had trimmed it up), two push pins, and up went the curtain! And it has worked, with one exception. When the hen comes out to eat or drink, she won't go back in the box unless we notice she is out and lift the curtain up for her. So there's been twice she's started sitting/setting on fresh eggs, and we had to prod her out. Today we lifted the curtain, thinking she would go back to her eggs (she's done that before), but nope. Even after I gathered all the fresh eggs out from under her, she moved all but two from her box and stayed in the middle. So I simply moved the curtain over one and put her last two eggs at the edge of the box for her. By the time I made the next picture, she had already claimed one of them.
So if all continues to go well, we could possibly have four biddies by the end of the month. I'm not anticipating it, as there is no guarantee the eggs are fertilized. And our Momma hens have never had a very good hatching/survival rate. But I'm just so excited and amazed that the curtain works!!!
Our chicks are all laying, and we have acquired a rooster - which means our eggs are now fertilized and hatchable. But we were quite shocked when one we hatched (Leghorn Ameracauna mix) started brooding the first of the month. (For non-chicken owners, that means a hen is gathering eggs to set/sit on for hatching.) That's quite young to be doing that. And since chickens all tend to use the same nesting area or two, not matter how many are available, that means ALL the eggs wind up under the setting hen. Unless you mark them, lift up Momma hen's bottom and pull out the unmarked ones every day WITHOUT getting your hand pecked to a blood pulp. I used a shovel once as a guard between the hen and myself, and still got at least one nasty peck. So brooding hens are never a great thing unless you can find a way to isolate them and their eggs from the rest of the flock. And right now, that's not an option.
But years ago, I read that you could put a curtain up over the nesting box - and no other chicken would go inside to lay. I decided to give it a try.
So if all continues to go well, we could possibly have four biddies by the end of the month. I'm not anticipating it, as there is no guarantee the eggs are fertilized. And our Momma hens have never had a very good hatching/survival rate. But I'm just so excited and amazed that the curtain works!!!
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