This just in. . .

Nita

Rita

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.

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.

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.

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.