21 Eggs and No More Chick

Sadly, the excitement of yesterday's lovely event turned to great disappointment this morning when the newborn chick was found dead.  We presume it had somehow escaped the safety and comfort of its mother's wings and then during the night, had been pecked by the other members of the coop.

So all we have left now, is a clutch of 21 eggs in the nesting box, 3 more than yesterday. Photo below taken today while the chicken had gone off for her usual walk. Knowing which of these eggs might contain a chick waiting to hatch is difficult to predict. Maybe we will have no more chicks....

The old adage of 'Don't count your chickens before they are hatched' makes a lot of sense right now. We learn from experience!!

I am seriously beginning to think that something is not quite right with this particular hen..... If no more chicks are hatched by the weekend, we will sadly have to throw the eggs away, as they will have gone way over the usual hatching period of 21-23 days. We will then have to make sure that this chicken does not sit on any more eggs for the time being....