Thanks for all your info. I wonder if you could also help me with a problem I had with our first batch of eggs. Our female layed six eggs in total, but all 2-3 days apart, so consequently they hatched so far apart. We had some rather large babies by the time the last 3 were hatched & consequently lost them. I did feed the last one for over a week when I realised what was happening, but it still didn't survive. I fed it with the bird raising formula. Is it possible to take the eggs from the nest as they are being layed & putting them all back in at the same time so they hatch together? I'd like for them all to survive, the ones we have are the prettiest Iv'e seen.

Thanks.

Edited July 25, 200915 yr by **Liv**

Hello and welcome,

 

The manner in which your hen lays the eggs is quite normal. Hens lay every second day and once chicks start to hatch its common to have very little ones with larger ones. Some people foster the older chicks out to hens with chicks about the same age so the younger chicks have a better chance. I tend to watch the little ones closely and make sure they dont get buried under all the older chicks. A good mother wont not feed a new chick... and quite often the older chicks will make sure the youngest is fed.

this is how often they are laid. i agree with what liv has already said. how much older are we talking??

You can take the first four eggs out as they are laid and store them cold and dark for approximately one week (as long as they have not at all been incubated), then warm them up in bath warm water, dry them quickly and put them (warmed up) back under a hen already sitting on two other eggs, but sometimes the hen will reject them (because some budgies know how to count), or the eggs become addled if they have been partly incubated already. So I do NOT recommend this.

 

Better to allow the hen to lay her nest and incubate the chicks to hatching, when she has hatched three chicks, take out the oldest chick (always leave her with at least two chicks) and foster the oldest chick to a similar aged nest with a similar sized chick elsewhere. As another chick is hatched, continue to foster the oldest one out, until there are two young chicks and three eggs remaining, then they ought to be around about the same size.

 

You can also foster the youngest chicks from other older chick nests to other hens who are just hatching or have younger similar aged chicks.

 

I often swap chicks between nests to achieve similar sized nests of offspring, or foster out the very oldest and very youngest chicks of large clutches to other nests of fewer numbers.