No, the title is not a typo. We are on day 16 AND day 5.

How, you ask?

This is how.

Yep, that’s another Broody Hen.Welly the Welsummer went broody once or twice last summer, but we weren’t successful in getting her to hatch the eggs. Or either of her Welsummer sisters for that matter (Summer and Suntime). But we learned a lot from our mistakes last summer and are very hopeful that she’ll come through this time.We have her set up in a large dog crate and think we have taken care of the mouse problem we had last time we had a hen be broody in this box (by getting cats and by not leaving food in the crate over night).

We put a dozen eggs under her 5 days ago after we moved her to the box and made sure she was dedicated to being broody. The eggs we put under her were laid by our White Leghorns who are in with a Speckled Sussex roo. While the genetics are not right for the chicks to be sex-link hybrids, they should lay great eggs when they grow up. IF they hatch, of course. We will candle the eggs in about a week. We’re hoping there’s at least a few that are fertile considering the roo has 17 hens to share his attention with.

Now, on to Day 16 with Bluebell. We candled on Day 12 and we have 10 developing eggs.One egg had not developed, and one was missing (probably got broken). One of the remaining eggs will most likely not develop much further as the air sack is not in the correct position. Unlike in the picture above, the air sack is on the side, not at the end like it’s supposed to be. So, at most, we’ll get 9 chicks from that clutch, IF they all hatch. Considering last summer’s abysmal failures, I’m not counting my chicks until they hatch.

We’re starting to get close, just 5 more days!