Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

yahoo doesn't offer a "farm" catagory a "BROODY HENS" question?

My situation is;

I have 2 broody hens sitting 2 separate nest, side by side without partition. Under these hens I have set several clutches of guinea eggs.

In the beginning I had only one broody hen and I marked with dates several clutches of eggs put them under her at different times with the intent that when she left the nest after the first clutch hatched I will raid the nest and put remaining eggs in an incubator. Sounded like a good plan to me.

A 2nd broody took to setting next to 1st broody in an adjacent nest. "WOW, so cool, now I can hatch more eggs!" I collected more guinea eggs from a neighbors flock to set and found first broody had given second broody about half her eggs. UH OH! this is getting complicated now! Now I have close to 60 guinea eggs under the 2 hens due to hatch all within 9 days of each other.

I know hens will leave the nest within about 36 hours after the hatch begins, my question is, will they leave the nest together if I keep the eggs from hatching under both hens at same time?

I candled eggs and put the most mature eggs under broody number 1 in hopes that broody number 2 will stay with the remaining eggs in the nest. Now they are swapping nest, seems each time they come out to eat they go back to the opposite nest?

July 2 - 12 hatch, the 4th 8 hatch, the 8th 8 hatch, the 10th 21 hatch, the 11th 12 hatch. I hope the 2nd broody will stay with the nest until the 10th.

Any suggestions besides "Don't do that again." ?

1 Answer

Relevance
  • John
    Lv 6
    7 years ago

    The category is agriculture.

    Good for you that was lucky hatches ,but according numbers you gave there are more hatches than 60 .

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.