Silkie Chicken Confusion

Silkies are an interesting bird. They are really good mothers and they go broody (wanting to sit on eggs and hatch them) really easily.  In April we had two broody hens and now we are up to three.

We had two nests in the box and we noticed two hens were sitting on the same nest (each sat on half of the eggs) so we started collecting eggs and made the other one a nest.  When we feed them they come off of their nest and than go right back on.  That is if they can find the right nest.  We had a hen who would sit on the three different pile of eggs til she found one she liked.  Another favorite thing the hens like doing is stealing eggs.  Some days there are two piles of eggs and others days there are three piles of eggs.  Also sometimes there are three hens in the box and other times there are six hens in the box.

One day we had a group come down and they were so excited because they were finding eggs all over the place in the petting farm.  Our Silkies plop out the eggs were ever they feel like. That day one of our cats gave birth to kittens or as one little girl said "the cat laid some kittens" in the chicken area of the petting farm.  When I went to go look at the kittens I saw an egg under the cat.  The next day the cat was taking a walk so I went to go make sure her kittens were okay and a hen was sitting on the kittens.

The clutch of eggs from April didn't hatch so we have put fresh eggs underneath all three broody hens.  Our hens have never had issues before hatching eggs so we are wondering if maybe our very cold spring had something to do with it.  Two hens have been sitting on eggs since April, but the birds look healthy so we are allowing them to try to hatch batch number two.  It takes eggs 21 days to hatch so I'm hoping we will have chicks June 21st. 

Lorissa