the eggs under our broody hen are due to hatch tomorrow. She’s a good girl, sits tight, and only gets off the nest once a day to eat and poo, and we don’t see her, but see the evidence. Today, when he was checking the animals before work, himself saw she was out eating, so peeked in, in the hope of seeing some chicks.
and there were only 2 eggs out of the 12 we set under her left. No shell, no mess, no chicks, no eggs.
Can only think it’s rats. She is in a broody coup, inside a covered hen run. We really thought she and her eggs would be safe in there.
damn damn…
I do sympathise. Our broody hen has only raised two chicks from six eggs – she moved the eggs and buried four of them in the straw and only sat on two. The two chicks are doing well so it’s disappointing to think there might have been six of them.
Do you have snakes there? Back when we had chickens and ducks, we sometimes had problems with large snakes stealing eggs, but probably not 10 at once. Good luck!
they might have gone one at a time.. we have not been disturbing her.. but took a peek the time we saw her off the nest. but no.. we really don’t have much in the way of snakes here.
I can jsut about imagine a rat squeezing in under the bottom of the broody coup.. I cannot imagine it getting an egg back. baffling. so next time we will have to mesh the bottom too, and hope that makes a difference. meantime we have set a live capture trap, in the hope of catching the thief.. or one of them…