If Daisy is broody, then Carrie is the layer. I would separate them. That way you will know all eggs are being incubated properly and she won't push out hatching eggs and take the new fresh -but unvaiable eggs. Most likely if she pushes one out you can candle it and tell if it is viable and if so just put it back, sometimes they just don't realize they have pushed some out from the bunch. But sometimes they may know something we don't--that the egg is bad and she doesn't want it to ruin her nest.

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 ~:>

As an afterthought - my apologies to the mail carriers of the world - I was completely overwrought when I wrote the first post. Our mail carrier has always been decent about bringing things right to my door, so I'm guessing my neighbor never even asked the carrier if it would be a problem to block off the box until the babies fledged. These neighbors are, as I mentioned, quite elderly and very meticulous about every grass blade in their yard. I'm sure it was much more about the MESS than the mail. Thanks everyone for your kind words - although they did make me cry all over again. You all are the best!

My female is sooo focused! First nesting fledged (6) on Thursday May 10th, I got the nestbox cleaned out asap because I know this female is very quick to start the second nesting (she is the same female we had the last two years). She started the second nest on Friday and laid the first egg this morning! I couldn't believe only four days inbetween fledging and laying another egg! Dad is still busy feeding the fledglings which are in our woods, haven't seen any of them yet, hopefully by this coming weekend I will get some glimpses of them and maybe tell how many made it. Two were non flyers so I am not sure about those two, especially with the mom focused on the second nesting and not on her fledglings. Donna