If she only started sitting the eggs in the last couple of days, I'd toss out everything--eggs too--and let her start again with fresh nesting material & new eggs. If the eggs are fairly well along, you can try and save them. First, create a temporary nest in a small cardboard box or a large mixing bowl with a bit of straw or an old towel. Have a damp (not wet) paper towel or two ready to clean the eggs with, plus fresh nesting material. Have all this stuff ready to go before you approach the nest, so that mama hen won't be disturbed for too long. Remove mama hen from the nest and shoo her away for a minute. If she has dried egg on her feathers, leave her be--she can clean herself, and you don't want to wet her feathers down and have her soak & chill the eggs when she returns to the nest. It won't harm the eggs to have her off the nest for a short time (hens naturally take anywhere from 10-20 minute breaks from setting, eggs are designed to handle this). Take one good egg at a time and GENTLY dab at it with a damp paper towel to clean off the worst of the mess. DON'T wash the egg, as eggs are porous and doing so can help introduce bacteria to the interior of the egg and kill the forming chick, or chill the egg too much. Check the eggs quickly but carefully for cracks, and be careful not to jostle them too much, turning them slowly in your hand. You only want to remove the worst of the crud. If the eggs are only a bit messy, leave them be. Mother Nature knows what she is doing, and over the course of setting on them, the body oils from mama hen's skin will polish the eggs to a lovely glow and polish off minor amounts of crud. :) Transfer the eggs one at a time into the temporary nest. Remove the fouled (fowled? hurr...) nesting material and place fresh, make a small well in it and place mama hen at the entrance to the nest & eggs so she sees it. Then back off. Let HER return to her nest herself, as if you place her right on the eggs she might end up stumbling around, stepping on them and you end up with more broken eggs. Let her be, and hopefully all will be well. :) Good luck with the hatch! I have a chicken site with lots of info that might help, the section on hens & chicks is here: http://jackshenhouse.com/VSChickHensBroodiesChicks.htm Velvet ~:>

I think if she is already building a new nest I would leave the old nest be. How deep is the nestbox from the hole to the floor? Hopefully the new nest doesn't get too close to that hole. Also make sure your pole is baffled to keep away climbing predators.

Do you have any idea about how old the babies were when they disappeared? Bluebird babies stay in the nest ABOUT 18 days, give or take a day, after they hatch. If you know when they hatched (you should always keep records) you will know how old they were. If they were 17 or 18 days old they may have just fledged normally from the nest. If they were younger than that they may have been the victims of predation by anything that could reach them. If they fledged normally you may not see them for weeks; they do a very good job of hiding for the first weeks. The eggs you dropped may have been old eggs, especially if they were buried in the nesting material. Please remove that ornamental box now and go to the Sialis website that Michelle posted for you. You will be able to make a proper setup for the next Bluebirds in your yard. Do it soon, if you can, in case this mother bird wants to lay more eggs. Good luck. www.sialis.org

Either last year or the year before I had a Bluebird and a wren trying to build a nest in the same box. First the wren and I removed the sticks, then a Bluebird started her second nesting and the wren added sticks on the layer of grass, which I again took out. I did this for a few days when finally the wren must have given up cause the Bluebird went on to finish her nest, lay the eggs and all the eggs hatched and fledged. This box was at a park near our home so I couldn't add a wren guard as I couldn't watch to make sure it was accepted. I worried all the time about them but apparently the wren must have given up. This year the BLues down there fledged their first nesting about two weeks ago. I keep checking for the next nest but so far nothing. The daddy Blue is always there when I check the nestbox though so I know they are planning another nesting only thing is I hear a wren right in the area too singing away so I am afraid he wants that box too but so far no sticks in there. Good luck, hope your wren stays away from the box now. Donna