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| Nita |
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| Rita |
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| The Duplex |
Rita and Nita went broody a couple of
weeks ago. Well first Rita went broody and I marked my calendar for
April 3 (21 days later). Then I thought Nita was still laying eggs in
the same nest (they all share the same one). Being a novice
chickeneer, I thought Nita was laying and leaving. I realized a
couple days into this process that she wasn't leaving. They were both
staying in the nest. Nita was all scrunched up in the very front of
the bucket. Hmmm. . . two hens. . . , how many eggs are in there?
Really not knowing what to do, I began my internet search.
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| Rita |
I found tons of information about how
hens go broody, how to break broodiness, how to incubate eggs in a
warmer, and how to candle eggs. Candleing an egg gives the
chickeneer, me, the ability to peek inside the eggs! I found that
other chickeneers have run into this shared nest problem too. If
there are too many eggs, one can get pushed out from under the warmth
of mom's breast for lack of room, cool, and then get recycled back
under mom which causes another to be pushed out to cool. It can
become a terrible mess. A dead egg doesn't smell very good when its
broken open by a misstep from one of the hens.
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| Nita | |
Deciding that the girls needed
separating and the eggs needed to be candled, I solicited help from
Nancy to try and see if we could successfully seperate the twins. So
yesterday, day 12, I solicited help from Nancy, brought the old
abandoned double nest into the house, and with a little alteration to
the coop, cutting the wires holding the perch, got the “tidy cat
bucket nest” out and took it into the house too.
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| Inside the "brooder" |
We sat knee to knee on lawn chairs. I
reached under the girls to get the eggs and Nancy fired up the
flashlight. One by one we ooohed and ahhhhed each egg. Some could be
seen moving a little, others not so much. We counted 4 under Nita,
and having looked at each one to be sure it was viable, placing each
one gently into the right nest, I gathered her up and plopped her
into the right side of the duplex too. Next we counted 7 eggs under
Rita. Sadly, one wasn't alive. I put 5 in the left nest, plopped Rita
in on top of those, and slipped the extra egg under Nita in the right
nest. Now they each have 5 chicks to care for. From what I read they
won't know the difference in number.
Nita was all turned around and comfy
cozy facing out from her new nest in just a short time while Rita
stayed with her tail feathers sticking out til the next day.
