Rural Gardening: Our little orphan baby, 1 by smedgekles

smedgekles wrote:
We had a Buff Orpington sitting on eggs, she had a clutch of 16 eggs under her at various stages of development. Two babies hatched and were in the nest and house with her, then the other day my son discovered that she had two eggs under her that were smashed a bit. One was so bad the baby died, it looked like it would have been due to hatch very soon. The other wasn't smashed as bad and the baby was peeping. Her other eggs were very dirty and her two babies were several days old and ready to go go go, so we put the partially smashed egg under another sitting hen and took mama and babies out, cleaned up the remaining eggs as best we could and put them in the incubator. Not sure if any will hatch. We candled some of them last night and most looked like duds, then my flashlight died so I didn't get the rest candled.

This baby is the one that we put under the other sitting hen. She still has eggs and didn't want the baby once it hatched, she pecked at it and pecked at it so we took it out. Pookies babies are too big now and she has 8 so we couldn't slip it in with her and the original mama hen doesn't want it either so we put it in a box with a light. Poor baby, it already is spoiled rotten and it hatched day before yesterday. I wish at least one of the other eggs would hatch so it would have a friend.