Raising Chickens Daily
This is a little background about my self as I was growing up as a boy on the farm. I guess I’ve raised nearly every domestic bird that is associated with farming.
Ever since I was young, hatching eggs, has been a fascination to me, and I have always tried to get domestic birds to hatch as many little ones as possible, since they will leave many little ones to die in the shell if you aren’t very observant. Just as soon as a hen, duck, goose, guinea, pheasant, or any other ground laying bird feels little ones under them, they are ready to leave the nest and let the rest of the ones in the eggs die, as they will very quickly as the temperature drops, because the mother is only concerned with the young which she has already hatched.
In the wild, it is estimated that approximately 3.2 billion, young are left to die in the egg, as the mother is ready to leave the nest just as soon as she feels 2 or 3 young ones under her. I used to be able to get the mother to many times hatch off 3-4 times as many little ones, simply by watching very close. Part of the reason this happens, is because the female may start setting on the eggs and still lay 8-10 more eggs. Each egg requires the same amount of incubation to hatch as all of the others, which is why the mother will leave the nest before the rest of them hatch. This is especially true in colder climates, as the mother knows that if an egg freezes, it will never hatch, so she may sit on them to keep them warm and this starts the hatching process, ahead of the eggs which she may continue to lay.
This doesn’t happen very much to tree nested birds, as the heat from the other young ones will quite often finish the hatching process which the mother began.
