There's a bit of an experiment happening on our tiny backyard farm. One of our hens went broody, which means her hormones are telling her to sit on her eggs and hatch some babies. Since she has no rooster, our choices are to break her brood (which is pretty difficult and drawn-out) or find her some fertilized eggs to sit on.
Thankfully some friends had some fancy blueish and reddish-brown fertilized eggs for us to try!
The brown are Black Copper Maran eggs. They lay what's called a chocolate colored egg. The greenish ones are a mixed breed "easter egger" hen. The father of all 6 of these eggs is Black Copper Maran, so the red eggs will be full-bred, and any hens will grow up to lay the chocolate colored eggs. Any hens that hatch from the greenish eggs should lay a darker green egg, and they'll be considered "olive eggers". We are so excited, we can't stand it.
We put the eggs under her yesterday on April 1st, and the gestation is about 21 days. So they are due Eli's birthday or Easter Sunday!
