Unless they’re broody, chickens don’t give a hoot in hell if we take any eggs, unfertilized or fertile. Sorry if this doesn’t fit your mother hen as a loving devoted mother cherished idea but, fact is?
Hens are totally indifferent to their eggs except and unless nature has kicked in and told them to brood, and when that instinct kicks in?
They’ll brood anything in a nest, chicken egg, duck egg, stray kitten, rock or snake(!).
They only know it’s round or about the right size and they “HAVE” to sit there. They actually don’t have a serious clue it’s their potential offspring when they lay eggs. To them, it’s just instinct that forces them to “Do this in that place and at this particular time”.
Once the chicks start peeping in the nest the hormonal bath the hen brain is going through while brooding seems to lock her into those peeps and she’ll take good care of those particular chicks for a few weeks after hatching.
And btw don’t try stuffing a chick not brooded by a hen under her. She’ll kill the strange chick about 90% of the time.
What’s worse? If by any chance one of those non-broody hens happens to find a cracked egg in her nest and pecks at it out of curiosity and discovers it’s got egg inside that round lump? She’ll devour any egg she can peck a hole in from then on. And she’ll teach her flock mates to do the same.
Shannon Stansberry has been engaged in the business of raising chickens for more than 12 years. In 2016, she accomplished the Agriculture & Natural Resources program at Mt. San Antonio College. At present, she tends to more than 80 chickens on her 4-hectare farm. Shannon regularly shares her insights and experience on how to raise healthy and contented chickens on the platform Typesofchickens.com
That’s a cute post. I have read that a chicken will hatch the “egg” from another chicken. When I gather eggs, which right now are only 3 a day because I am just starting out with my girls, they almost look as if they are asking for a hug and for me to tell them “good job girl”, which I do and then pet all of them. After that, they go about their daily routine.