"Egg"streme Disappointment

We have a California Grey hen (among 12 other hens of different varieties and a loud, obnoxious, cranky Buff Orfington rooster). Well, a few weeks ago, she decided that she was going to be broody. That means she wanted to sit on her eggs and peck at anyone who decided to gather them. Curious as to whether we could actually hatch our own baby chicks, (I'm thinking - rotate the flock, always have fresh chicken to eat as well as the eggs...) I decided to leave her alone. We were coming up on the 21 day incubation period and I've been watching to see if there has been any sign of hatching when I went out a couple of days ago and noticed that there were 25 eggs unattended. No biggie, I think. She just needed to stretch and get some fresh air, water, food, whatever. So I go out the next day, eggs - all alone - again. A little nervous, but thinking she's just taking a break, I don't worry about it. So today was the third day and when I checked this morning, same deal. So I touched the eggs to see how they felt. Stone cold. No residual warmth at all. They've been sitting there, no mama, for 3 days and whatever was growing inside them isn't growing anymore. Ugh. How frustrating. I don't know if I'm more disappointed not to have baby chicks for the meat & eggs or because I was really looking forward to Caroline seeing how baby chicks are made. Oh well. Maybe we'll try again later. Maybe not. But yeah, just because I'm gross and totally morbidly curious, I had to crack some of the eggs just to see. Yup. Lifeless almost fully grown chicks. So depressing.