# Burying Eggs Due to Hatch



## FairyFreak12 (Jun 8, 2012)

So my female layed an egg on Easter, and proceeded to lay more till she had a clutch of 4. She has a male in with her, and has for a few months, and she has been constantly sitting on the eggs. The male never sat on them, but he would stick his head in and whistle at them  Well, the first egg was due to hatch today and i checked them this morning and my female had covered the eggs with nesting material and was out in the cage. She hasn't acknowledged them all day and they were getting cold so i moved the nesting material and put a lamp over them. I am keeping them warm but none have hatched yet and i don't have the proper tools to Candle them. Are they infertile, even though she has sat on them for 21 days? Is it normal for a hen to sit on infertile eggs that long? Should i keep the heat on them and check tomorrow for a hatchling? Both her and the male are first time parents so I didn't think anything was wrong by Him not helping Her sit on the eggs, but is that normal?


----------



## KerriMac0216 (Apr 7, 2013)

Give it some time.... my first baby hatched yesterday so I have been reading reading and reading....I read that they will bury the egg so it can cool down to an appropriate temperature to hatch. Not sure if this is true as I missed my hatch but give it time  Also I used a normal led flash light and even the flashlight app on my iphone to check my eggs and with this i could see veins the first bit the dark eggs later and even knew this little one would be here soon. there are lots of great pics on the internet to help you know what your eggs should look like


----------



## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Usually they will push the egg away that's getting ready to hatch to allow it to cool but I've never heard of them jumping off of all the eggs. I had two hens when I was breeding that would sit on their eggs 24/7 and the males would only sit in with them or sit when they got out to poop and eat. So that's not really unusual. It could be that the eggs are DIS and she has given up on them. And yes, its normal for them to sit on infertile eggs for the full 21 days. This is why when people have single hens who are laying we tell them to leave the eggs until the hen has abandoned them so that she doesn't try to replace them.


----------



## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

You don't need fancy expensive equipment to candle eggs, a small flashlight with a bright narrow beam will do an excellent job. There's detailed information on candling at http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/info/breed-eggcandling.html

Before the eggs were laid, did you see your birds mating at all? If you didn't then the eggs are probably infertile. A pair that's in full breeding mode will "do it" several times a day, and the hen makes odd noises during the process so it's hard to miss. Your male doesn't sound very invested in the breeding process so he may not have been in breeding mode when the eggs were laid.


----------

