Our eggs arrived today.

[mischief]

One of our hens went broody so we bought her some fertile eggs to hatch out.
They finally arrived today so we moved a rabbit cage with built in nest box to the porch out of the wind and put some shredded paper in the box.
The eggs were put in and the hen added.
She seemed alittle hesitant about sitting on them for a good 15 minutes but is now doing so.

I feel nervous, never having 'raised' chickies before.
I put her in the porch so we could keep and eye on her and then realised that she was used to being out of the limelight so put a towel over the cage to hide her from prying eyes.

When she was sitting in the nest box in the dome, I noticed that she came out for the morning feed but not the afternoon one so I left off putting her in her new temp home til she had breakfast and she now has her own water dish as well.

We have a now redundant dog house and kennel that we will move her and the chicks to when it looks like they are too big for the rabbit cage and will fence off the bit of yard behind the garage(has only one gap to fill) to let them run around when they will be safe from the cats.

Have I forgotten anything?
I know about putting pebbles in the water dish so the chicks dont drown but thats about it.

[Grahame]

She will know what to do. Just make sure she doesn't get disturbed. Her feeding habits will probably be irregular. I usually just leave a bit out for her so she can eat when the fancy takes her.

Once they are hatched the mum will know what to do. She will teach the little tackers how to drink, keep them warm and all that jazz. It's a breeze really when there is a mum involved.

[Terra]

Once they have finished hatching take away any unbroken eggs so she gets on with minding the chickens and doesnt just keep sitting on infertile eggs .
regards Rob

[mischief]

Thank you both.
Didnt think about the old or broken eggs, I suppose there might be the odd one that doesnt hatch out.

[labradel]

hi mischief you will need to ensure that the fence is realy good with only small hole a newly hatched chicken can get through an extremely small opening

[mischief]

Just saw the last post now.
Oh yes !!! We learnt that too.
I still havent figured out how they got out after I had sewed the bottoms with fishing line but hopefully they are too big for any gap now.