2q's Sharing eggs/chicks and how many clutches please?

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sarah1983jane

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  • Location: Near Hexham, Northumberland
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Hi,
We have a strange hen family - a bit Jeremy Kyle in my opinion.
They are pekin Bantams, 1 boy and 2 girls - all unrelated.
A few months ago one hen made a nest and seemed to lay her eggs as well as pinch the other hens eggs and sat on 12.
Many months later they are onto the second clutch of the year, this time it looks like one hen did a nest and laid eggs and the other hen made a nest next to it and took 4 of the eggs and sat on them for herself.
The chicks have hatched and he two mums seem quite happy sharing the chicks - is that normal?

Also any idea how many clutches they might sit on in the year? I think we will need a bigger hen house at this rate!

Thanks

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Helenaj

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  • Location: Treorchy, South Wales
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Re: 2q's Sharing eggs/chicks and how many clutches please?
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2011, 12:31 »
You've been very lucky! Usually when two broody hens are in the same nestbox, they constantly try and pinch each other's eggs and often those eggs won't hatch because they've been out in the air longer than under the hen, so can't develop properly. Or the chicks are injured or killed in the hens' enthusiastic attempts to kidnap them from the other.
If one or the other goes broody again and you want chicks, it would be better to seperate her from the other and let her get on with it on her own. I would also recommend that you get unrelated eggs to put under her rather than her incubate her own as any resulting pullets would be related to the cockerel and could lead to all sorts of genetic problems further down the road if he mates with his daughter..

As for going broody, I have a Speckledy go broody early this year and she's broody again now. I'm trying to break her of it as she's a terrible Mum, but there's no set times a hen could go broody.

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sarah1983jane

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  • Location: Near Hexham, Northumberland
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Re: 2q's Sharing eggs/chicks and how many clutches please?
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2011, 18:23 »
Thanks Helenaj,
Your so right, unfortunately one of the chicks was found dead the day after it hatched, I guess it could have been anything but there is a high chance it got trampled when the mums were fighting over them.
They now all roam outside together, dad, 2 mums, chicks and the teenagers(june's hatchlings) and seem very settled but we now know what we need to do over the coming weeks...shift the teenagers before dad tried to mate his daughters and fight with his son!


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