Read the Instructions First

My wonderful sister-in-law, Tina, gave me Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens long before I embarked upon chicken raising.  One would think that I would've referenced the book before I tried the natural method of chickbirth, wouldn't one?  Well, I didn't.  One would think that a hen would know how to hatch chicks and all that, wouldn't one?  Well, maybe she does, maybe she doesn't, but things aren't going so well around here in egg hatching land.

At least one of my hens did get broodie (broody?) and is sitting on the eggs pretty much all the time.  Since they all pretty much look alike, I'm not sure if it's one hen or if others are taking their turn sitting on the eggs.  But, before we reached this point, we've had ... issues. 

I started out with the 12 eggs in the box, but the chickens kept laying more.  I marked them so that I'd know the original 12 (so I could remove the new ones) and also to be able to tell if they were being turned.  But, with the chickens sitting on them and getting in and out of the box to lay even more eggs in it, they rubbed off my marks.  I ended up with 15 eggs in the box, then a snake ate five of them in one night.

 Back to ten eggs, then a couple more were laid, then two were broken.  They weren't rotten, but it made the nest stinky and sticky and the eggs nasty dirty, as evidenced by the picture above.  I snuck in and cleaned out the nest when the hen wasn't looking, threw away the three dirtiest eggs, then put clean bedding and replaced the eggs.  Another egg got broken somehow today, so now the eggs are all dirty and sticky and I'm going to have to clean the nest again.

One thing I do know is that the eggs need to be kept clean.  I don't know how they are getting broken, but it can't be good for the developing chicks for the eggs to be coated with dirt, egg innards, and feathers.  Eeww.

So, I had a lightbulb moment and thought to look it up in my chicken book.  Apparently, I have done just about everything wrong.  The hen needs to have her own little brooding pen/house and I'm going to have to wash the eggs in warm water.  I'd like to start all over with new eggs, but I'm afraid I might mess the hen's timing up or something since they supposedly sit on the eggs for 21 days.  I'm not sure how they know that.

Bah.  I don't know what to do now.  I'm going to have to sleep on it. and try to come up with a solution to the problem of separating the chicken. 

How in the world does a bird ever hatch an egg without us humans messing with them?  Hmm, maybe that's the problem, we're messing with them.