Will they hatch?

On Halloween night and the next day, Sophie, our Double Penciled Silver Rock hen went broody. She has been setting on 9 eggs over the past 3 weeks and tomorrow (Nov. 21) the eggs should hatch. Here is a video where you can see the embryo in one of the eggs moving around... Amazing.



Now the bad news - the eggs may have gotten too cold. Here's the scoop. On Tuesday evening I went down to check on the chickens and Sophie got off the nest to see if I had any corn. I gave everyone their treats and left the barn while Sophie was still off the nest. I thought she would have no trouble getting back on the nest in the dark. Well, it got down to about 20 degrees that night and when I went down the next morning, Sophie was setting on the wrong nest box!!!! Her eggs may have gone all night without any heat! I felt them and they were very cool to the touch. I tried putting her back on the nest, but she flew out of it immediately. I wrote the whole brood off as casualties of my ignorance (she could not see in the dark and I should have known that...) but the next time I went down to the barn she was back on the correct nest and hasn't left it since. So... I have no idea if the eggs are still viable, or if she is brooding little frozen babies, but I have decided to let nature takes its own course. If the eggs hatch and the chicks live it will be great, but if they froze that night then it wasn't meant to be...

Once we know if there are any survivors I will post here, hopefully with pictures.

As for Mama Pickens' brood of 6 babies, they are doing great!!!!