Confessions of an Author

Mother Hen 1 My broody hen has done rather well. Yesterday, when I went to let out the chickens, I could hear someone cheeping from the nest. I tried to see, but mother hen wasn’t moving, and I am wary of her beak. I checked several times during the day, but although there was often cheeping, there was no sign of any hatchlings. I wondered what it would be. You might remember me telling you, a few weeks ago, one hen went broody and made a nest. I don’t want any more chickens, especially as at least half are cockerels, so I decided to remove the eggs. But a broody hen gets very upset when you take her eggs, and will sometimes disappear in an attempt to hide a nest. I  do  want some more ducks, and I had some duck eggs in the fridge, so as I removed the chicken eggs, I replaced with them with duck eggs. Mother hen hissed at me, but continued to sit. Chicken eggs take exactly 3 weeks to hatch. Duck eggs take exactly 4 weeks to hatch – the cheeps were heard after ...

How to Hatch an Egg 1 How to Hatch an Egg by Anne E Thompson To hatch an egg, first you need a fertilised egg (which the eggs you buy in the supermarket might be but probably are not!) To obtain a fertilised egg, you either need one of these: (a male of the species you hope to hatch!) or  you can buy them. I buy them from ebay and they are posted to me in clever polystyrene boxes. When you have your eggs, you either have to begin growing it at once, or keep it somewhere cool (like a garage) and turn it once a day. Fresh eggs have much the best chance of survival. However, I did once want to fill a half-empty incubator and used an egg that had been in the fridge for two weeks. It hatched into a perfectly healthy duckling which we named ‘Cupcake’. In the wild, the mother bird will lay one egg per day in the nest and leave them until she has enough to sit on. Ducks will sit on about twenty. So, should you find a nest in the wild with cold eggs ...