[suziequeue]

Great to hear you are persevering Polished Arrow. The only crime if mistakes are made is if you learn nothing from them.....

If you have a clutch of fertilised eggs and a broody hen, then why don't you just put the eggs under her bottom now?? She'll do a much better job of incubating them than any man-made incy will do......... plus you don't have to worry about power cuts, humidity levels and the like......

Just a thought.......

[Polished Arrow]

Great to hear you are persevering Polished Arrow. The only crime if mistakes are made is if you learn nothing from them.....

If you have a clutch of fertilised eggs and a broody hen, then why don't you just put the eggs under her bottom now?? She'll do a much better job of incubating them than any man-made incy will do......... plus you don't have to worry about power cuts, humidity levels and the like......

Just a thought.......

Yes, we had that thought too.  We have a spare coop, but not a spare run.  So we tried putting the broody on eggs in the spare coop in the main run...  guess what?  All the other hens came in and turfed her out!  Now we are concerned that the eggs will need longer than she can be bothered to sit for?


One thought is to put them in the incubator and then, when they are a day from hatching if we still have a broody, swap them.  What do you reckon to that?

[suziequeue]

This is Rosie Posie (who knows a thing or two about chickens IMO!!!) on another thread:
 

Well the final tally is 9 hatched, one is still in the incy not even pipped, but is alive (not holding out much hope for it now though)

All 9 were a lovely instant family for one of my broodies, she is very pleased with them

So - it's within the realms of possibility