Posted: Fri Jun 26, 15 7:43 am Post subject: waiting
So we have:
9 Silver Laced Wyandotte eggs in a little incubator (since last Saturday)
3 under a friend's broody Orpington bantam
and
2 silver duckwing welsummer hens who've been awol for about 2 and a half weeks and show up very very occasionally behaving in a broody fashion.
We have a nice patch of cover for them to play in which they've gone to ground in and I've not gone in after them as I don't want to disturb them and on our fox-free island they're pretty safe out there.
I was wondering what the likely timing on the arrival of their chicks (if any) was - obviously incubation is 21 days but do they accumulate a clutch of eggs whilst going about their business normally and then only start to sit tight once they're ready or do they start doing weird broody things well before this? If it's the former we should hopefully have chicks sometime in the next week but we've never had this before (and thought we never would with the welsummers!).
People quite often make this mistake. It doesn't matter whether the eggs were laid at the beginning of the clutch being laid down or at the end. All the eggs will remain dormant until the hen starts to sit in earnest. In theory, they should all hatch at the same time but in practice, this could be over a period of a couple of days.
People quite often make this mistake. It doesn't matter whether the eggs were laid at the beginning of the clutch being laid down or at the end. All the eggs will remain dormant until the hen starts to sit in earnest. In theory, they should all hatch at the same time but in practice, this could be over a period of a couple of days.
So it sounds like they would've been dropping eggs off in the bush and then going about their business as per normal prior to sitting for 21ish days. That's good news - everything we've read suggests welsummers aren't great broodies so I've been half expecting them to give up part way through but on that basis they must be almost there.....
Its said that Welsummers don't go broody but I've actually got one that's broody right now.
still no sign of the location of our two broody welsummers (both still popping up occasionally to feed/drink then hooning it back into the deep cover). the waiting is agony!
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