Too many chickens?

So... a couple of months ago we got a new rooster with the intention of adding new chicks to our flock. (This rooster has turned out to be a very aggressive beast, yes he is protecting his girls but he goes for Will and I even if there is a fence between us and him! He has got to go!)

Anyway, we started collecting what we hoped were fertilised eggs and while Will was away in Wagga, I set 24 of these eggs under 2 of our broody hens, Oxomoco and Xochiquetzal in the 'Chickery'. These two hens had been broody for a couple of weeks already but immediately sat upon the eggs.

I went down to Wagga to see Will but told the neighbours about the two broody hens and asked them to collect and use the other newly laid eggs while I was away.

Will and I came back after a week and found another 3 broody hens sitting on a further 25 eggs. (The neighbours had not been over to collect any.) This meant we potentially had 49 new chicks on the way!

However, also while we were away something had happened in the 'Chickery' and there were quite a few broken egg shells and abandoned eggs lying about away from the nesting hens. Ut is a mystery as to what happened. It turned out that Oxomoco was now only sitting on three eggs while Xochiquetzal still had her 12.

As they had all been set on a certain date we knew that the first lot would begin to hatch 21 days later. Two of Xochiquetzal's hatched out before she abandoned the other eggs and left the nest with her chicks.

We put the rest of Xochiquetzal's eggs under Oxomoco hoping more would hatch but after another week there was nothing more. Oxomoco had now been sitting patiently for 6 weeks with nothing to show for her efforts. (So from the 24 eggs I originally set we only got 2 chicks.)

We had to wash Oxomoco because she stank, possibly from sitting upon eggs that had broken under her. We put her in a separate pen to dry off.

We decided to move the 3 other broody hens into the 'Chickery' where their chicks would be safe except that we had no concrete idea when they would hatch as it was possible these eggs were all laid on different days and therefore would not all hatch together.

It was a bad idea because once moved these three hens were disorientated and left their nests trying to get back to the other pen where they had been nesting.

We brought Oxomoco back in and set her on 10 of these other eggs. Despite the length of time she had already been sitting and the fact she had been off the nest for two days, she took to them straight away. We moved the other three hens back and shared the rest of the eggs out between them.

Happily Oxomoco ended up with 3 chicks after her mammoth efforts and from the possible 49 eggs we have 13 new chicks. It's sad we didn't get anymore but I think an extra 49 on top of our existing 11 hens would be too many chickens!

The incredibly patient Oxomoco and one of her brood.