For reasons to do with having free range birds that like nothing better than laying everywhere except the places you actually 'want' them to lay, we ended up with some rogue eggs in the barn broodies’ cat basket which didn’t of course hatch when the original eight did - having been laid there later. We of course had no idea when they were due or even if any were fertile but when the barn broodies gave up on them, we took them away, candled them and saw that one was indeed growing. We popped it in an incubator and lo and hehold, yesterday afternoon, this rather sweet grey looking chick emerged and began to make his/her presence keenly known. This evening we then had the task of giving him to a ‘mum’ We chose the Stable broody with her three chicks on the basis that as the Barn two had fought, we didn’t want to upset the balance of power that now existed there.
It was all very simple: we waited till she was settled in her basket and then under the cover of nighttime, snuck the little fella under her. And that was that!
Fingers crossed all is well in the morning. No reason to suppose it won’t be!!