Daisy went broody a while back, unfortunetly her first setting of eggs
never hatched, and she began setting again.
Her second lot was a total of 16 eggs some of witch were Henriettas.
I had originally mentioned that i was concerned about the height of her chosen nest, and the possibility of one of the chicks falling.
Well a few weeks back now, Malcolm had stopped off in Andrew after a job out in that area, and found Daisy sitting in the middle of the coop on the floor.
He picked her up to put her back in her nest, and out ran a little chick from under her.
Malcolm put the 2 of them into the broody box we had made from her first batch of eggs.
When he felt the eggs she had left up in her nest he found that 1 had a bit of a beak peaking through and few of them had cracked.
My original thought was that 1 had fallen and that she went after it.
This was my big concern before.
But i don't believe this to be the case anymore.
I read alot about broody hens and the hatching process, and if there are eggs that dont hatch with in a certain amount of time the momma hen will push the unhatched eggs out of her nest.
Because of her chosen nest she couldn't do that.
After talking to my neighbour Guy, he said that if they were already cracking they would have hatched even if Daisy wasn't still sitting on them, and that it is most likely that she pushed the chick out and left the nest with her.
From what i have read, hatching from the egg is the first life test for the chicks, and if they cant break free it is generally because the are not strong enough to succeed and will not be healthy chicks.
I imagine she sat on the eggs for 1 or 2 days while they were hatching, and when they
weren't breaking free, she left the nest with her 1 hatchling.
Here is a video of our baby chick, Marda.
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