Asheville
37°
Livonia
34°
Bloomfield
32°
I have this broody hen. My neighbors up the mountain have lots of chickens, but none of their hens want to sit one eggs. Solution? Bring some of their eggs to Butter Bean and let her hatch them. Then the chicks will go live up the mountain when they are of age. I knew that if I had Butter Bean hatch her own eggs, I would never allow them to go anywhere.
So Butter Bean is going to be a surrogate.
These are the eggs she will attempt to hatch. I cannot wait to show a comparison when my hens lay tomorrow. These eggs are ostrich eggs in comparison to the ones mine lay.
How long will it take her to adopt these as her own?
She took to them right away. One of them is not quite under her, but she will work it out.
See how big Lucille has gotten?
She actually looks like a chicken now.
Yahoo!! That’s awesome! I didn’t know if she’d fit on all of them or not. So, I guess her due date is around the 11th of June! I’m excited!! Can’t wait to see what hatches!
Is her nest on the ground or up high?
It is off the ground, but there is a ramp. Last time I put food and water in the house for them when they were born. Then at about one week she brought them down, but they stayed under the house, with her obviously, for another week. Then they went up and down like nothing.
At what age should we move them?
cant wait to see what you get when all those various color eggs hatch
pet lucille for me
Lucille is getting so big and I’m interested in seeing the comparison between the eggs.
Do you think Butter Bean knows you switched the eggs? I wonder what these chics will look like when born. What will happen when you take the new chics away from the rest of the chickens when they are old enough? Are you going to do this every time a hen wants to sit in the future?
6-7 weeks old, if I remember correctly from last time. That’s when they should have enough feathering to keep themselves warm. We can play it by ear, though. It will be getting pretty tight in there if they all hatch.