Broody Silkie Hen: CANDLING and HATCHING... We have babies!

[Hinotori]

I have two silkies that are very different when broody. One will take herself off and go eat two to three times a day. The other one will sit on the nest without getting off until she's extremely thirsty, so I have to pull her off a couple times a day and put her by the food and water. We'll see how the teenage daughter of the first one does when she gets old enough.

I check the crop to see if they have any food in there when I check them. If there is food, I leave them be. At about day 3, you can see the veining starting in silkie eggs. They are small and light colored enough to candle easily. My girls trust me very well so it doesn't bother them when I mess with them and their eggs. I use a 220 lumen flashlight for candling and it works very well for the light colored eggs. I can't really see into the large green eggs of my easter egger girls with it.

 

[the funny farm6]

wow. when my giant blue cochens went broody NOBODY went near them!!!! very friendly any other time, but wow! i just put a small dish of food and water near them ( as close as i could get lol ) and they did fine.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

H-day was yesterday! Out of the 5 eggs my broody set, all 5 hatched between yesterday and today. There was a straggler who only hatched early this morning, but ... WOOHOO!

She sat on 3 bantam silkie eggs and 2 bantam blue egger eggs, all fertilized by a bantam egger roo. Hatched chicklets are a beautiful yellow chick, 2 grey, 1 striped, and the last was a black one.

We did try to candle last weekend but couldn't see anything. Was probably the not-strong-enough flashlight we used, but we did see air pockets. I thought maybe none of them would hatch.

Friday night we tried again, and this time we didn't see ANY air pocket at all. That lifted us! And the yesterday morning, Saturday, we found the first chick had hatched just shortly before we checked, one had pipped through but was taking a break, and a third had a tiny beginning hole. We had the 3 by mid-afternoon. Before bed last night we found the fourth had just hatched, and this morning the fifth was there.

I love that my broody silkie hen knew what to do. Especially that one: Sneezy. She sneezed a lot as a baby, so we babied her in the house along with a roo that developed curled toes and another chick with health problems. Once we were sure she would be ok, we put her in with her hatchmates, around age 4 months. We know she's Sneezy because before we added her to the gen pop, we put an orange zip-tie on her leg. It's still there.

Have one more broody silkie hen in the goat pen next to her. She is sitting on 5: 2 silkie eggs, 2 bantam egger eggs, and 1 standard-sized blue egg. She has another 2 weeks to go. And boy howdy when we moved her off yesterday to add some wood shavings, she was furious with us until we added some hay back in. Yelled for about 15 minutes! Trying to come up with a name for her: a scolding mama protecting her babies. Any ideas?

 

[Denim Deb]

No ideas, but glad you got some babies! I'll have some this week too, one way or another.

 

[Hinotori]

Congrats on the chicks! I just love broodies for hatching. Silkies just live for chicks and hatching.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Sneezy is a great mom! Every time I try to make her go eat, drink or poop, she screams and runs back to her babies. Guess she's sneaking out while they sleep, or while **I** sleep.

 

[Mattemma]

You are so lucky! I left eggs in the nest box hoping one of my EE's would get broody,but I was up to 10 eggs in there and no interest. Gave up and took the eggs out. Maybe I need to get some silkies,but I worry the EE's and roo would hurt them.

 

[Denim Deb]

You are so lucky! I left eggs in the nest box hoping one of my EE's would get broody,but I was up to 10 eggs in there and no interest. Gave up and took the eggs out. Maybe I need to get some silkies,but I worry the EE's and roo would hurt them.

I'm planning on getting some chicks this year, either by hatching them out and/or buying. And, I'm going to get a couple of silky chicks for just that reason. I'll raise them all together, so that when they're integrated into the flock, I don't think I'll have to worry about them. My eggs are supposed to hatch today, but I have a feeling that once again, I'm getting nothing. If so, I'll be buying chicks this week if I can find what I want.