Our hen is a mother! Last night we discovered 3 chicks: two black chicks and a grey chick. The mama hen is white, so it looks like she might be a surrogate mama to all three.
Mama hovering over her little peepers
We were really beginning to think she was sitting on duds and debating how much longer to wait before throwing out rotting eggs. A few days ago in a brief moment of having her off the nest to get food and water, I used my headlamp to peer inside the eggs. By holding the eggs against the headlight, the egg becomes somewhat transparent and I can check for signs of life. I didn't get through checking them all, but of the eggs I checked, at least two seemed solid and dark while the others let light readily through with little shadowing. I did the same with a store egg in the fridge for comparison and found those to also light up translucent when pressed against the headlamp. From this I decided only a few were even possibly developing and near hatching - I was right!
Unhatched clutch
I am left with a decision about what to do with the unhatched eggs. I don't think my curiosity is great enough to crack them open to see how they are inside, nor do I have the fortitude to eat them. According to the Encyclopedia of Country Living, a rotten egg can be distinguished by the tough inner membrane if you venture to crack it, a distinctive smell, and it will float in water. According to the float test, I have 5 rotten eggs and one "stale" egg (standing on end, just barely touching the bottom). If I was desperate and starving, I'd go for egg #6, but we're not. We will either throw them as far out towards the ocean as possible, or shoot them that way with the potato gun and let the seagulls and fish have a stinky treat.
Broken shells left behind by little chicks
From getting my first hens in preschool, I've always faced a lot of confusion and questions from the people around me about chickens and eggs and the who "birds" part of "the birds and the bees". I will do my best to explain the common questions I've heard.
Chickens are supposed to start laying between 20-24 weeks old, though chicks born in spring tend to start laying sooner but less fertile eggs, less steady eggs, and smaller eggs (what we have now). Chicks born later in the summer tend to not lay until the next spring, but then lay larger eggs more consistently. There is no comment in there about chicks born in the end of October! Hopefully these little ones will make it through the winter with their novice mama.
Once hens start laying, they lay an egg nearly ever day (~255/365) with or without a rooster... just like how human women produce eggs with or without a man. The difference with a rooster is that the eggs may have the potential to develop if sat on and such. Both fertilized and unfertilized eggs are equally good to eat, and as far as I know, the only way to tell the difference is to put them in an incubator.
The hen in theory lays her first egg first thing in the morning, then each day lays her egg about an hour later until 12 or so days later when she lays her final egg right before bed, then will stay on the nest through the night and for the next 3 weeks until they hatch. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Often the hens will all use the same nest box as they have the instinct to lay their egg where there already is an egg to 'add to the clutch'. I designed my nest boxes so two hens can actually share and lay at the same time, though generally they don't all have the need to lay at just the same moment. In our modern world, going "broody" or having the impulse to stop laying and sit on the eggs for the next 3 weeks, then plan to raise some chicks and thus not lay another egg for quite a long time, has been virtually bred out of chickens to increase egg production. I have gone to lengths to find chickens that still have their natural instincts intact and am committed to letting them do what nature does without too much intervention from me. If the chicks make it, excellent! If not, hopefully it will be good practice for her and next time she'll be an even better mother.
So once Mama Ukraine, my good white hen there, saw the pile of eggs her sisters had laid over the last three days about, she decided it was time to start sitting on those eggs. Because the chickens are young, and it is winter, and the roosters don't have all their smooth moves down yet, I was afraid all the eggs might be duds - no babies. But Mama Ukrane was diligent. In theory, she carefully turned each egg every couple hours, turning them over and switching which eggs are in the middle and which are on the outside for even incubating. She slept on the eggs, spent most of the day on the eggs, and was very calm and sedated to conserve energy for her long work ahead. Each day, she took a quick break to run outside, get a drink and some food, and stretch her legs before rushing back to the eggs. I felt the eggs every time she was off the next and they were always still toasty warm from her body heat. I provided Mama Ukraine with a little cup of food and water in her nest box with her to try to help her keep her energy up. Chickens have a higher-than-human body temperature which helps them fight infections yet, coincidentally, means the eggs are incubated at about human body temperature; this means a well-endowed woman could carry an egg 'close to her heart' for three weeks and hatch a chick if she was very careful and dedicated. If I had the proper equipment, you can bet I would be trying it.
As we got closer to the hatch date, and it looked like Mama Ukrane was really set on hatching those eggs, I waited until late one night when she was the most calm and settled in, then had Tim help me lift the specially designed nest boxes off the shelf and onto the floor so her chicks wouldn't fall when they hatched. I also waited until she was off her nest to get food and water one day, then used my headlamp to 'candle' the eggs as described above. If I was really dedicated, I could have brought a few into the house at a time and held them up to the projector light in a dark room and may have been able to see veins developing in the chick embryos. I was more interested in getting a vague idea if there was any hope of eggs hatching while disturbing the nest and risking the eggs as little as possible. The result was quickly checking a sampling of eggs and going with "dark" or "light" inside. If I was clever, I would have marked the good ones from the bad ones, maybe even slowly smuggling out the bad ones one at a time to focus her love on the good ones. As it happened, I just got out of the hen house as quick as possible so as not to bother the poor expectant mother more than necessary.
Now that the chicks have hatched, Mama Ukraine promptly abandoned the unhatched eggs and went about protecting her new chicks. When all is quiet, the chicks will explore around their mama, running and hopping on their first day of life like our mail-order chicks did at a week old. When something disturbs the hen house (me), Mama Ukraine sweeps in and plops herself down over her chicks, keeping them warm and safe. I have put out baby-sized food and water containers with protective fencing around to keep the big birds from knocking them over. I also put the adult water up high to keep the little ones safe from drowning and put a foot-high board across the bottom of the hall to the outside to keep those chicks safe in the hen house and out of the rain and mud. I am afraid if they go out, they won't be able to get back up the ramp to the house, and it is quite cold and wet out there.
I can vouch for the "float" method of egg testing. Some old eggs sitting in my refrigerator for months - I had to see if they were good or bad somehow!
ReplyDeleteWell, the bowl of rotten eggs in water is still sitting outside. We need to have an egg chucking contest soon - who can throw the eggs the farthest from our property. Aim for the ocean!
ReplyDelete