Broody Hen...... first time..... Please Help!!

A1momof3

Songster
5 Years
Feb 24, 2014
564
51
128
Quitman, Texas
I have a hen that has gone broody. I am excited and I want to let her go through it so I wasn't going to bother her and I knew she had eggs under her. She had been in the same nest the last two days I went out to gather eggs. I has been home coming in our town and I have been so busy that I only gathered eggs once a day. Then the third day when I went in she was in different nest and a different hen was in the other nest. She laid her egg and went on her way but my broody hen stayed in her new nest. Unable to do anything about it at the time, I just left her there. The next day I went out to try to deal with the issue and gather eggs from the other nest and she was back in the original nest. (Note I had not moved or gather the eggs in either one of the nests she has been in until today and I disposed of the eggs in the two nests)

Seeing that when she does finally gets up to go eat/drink and do her thing another hen takes that nest, I realize I need to put her in a maternity ward type of area. So is it better to make the maternity ward in the coop when she can still see the other chickens but be gated off from them or will that be to much stress on her and I need to put the maternity ward in a completely different area?

Any other advice will be great!!
 
Put it in an area she can be seen if possible otherwise after the chicks hatch they will treat her like they don't know her and you can have pecking order fights. In fact you will probably have them anyway but no need to add to it by making her a stranger.

So what sort of chicks will you be hatching? ie what breed are mum and dad? Exciting isn't it :)
 
Put it in an area she can be seen if possible otherwise after the chicks hatch they will treat her like they don't know her and you can have pecking order fights. In fact you will probably have them anyway but no need to add to it by making her a stranger.

So what sort of chicks will you be hatching? ie what breed are mum and dad? Exciting isn't it
smile.png

These are the chicken I just got for eggs so I never really planned on hatching any but they are a mix of RIR and BR. I have RIR roosters. I also want to put a couple of my BCM eggs under her and silkie. This is our first Broody hen so it is a trial run I guess. Once I have it down better and understand what works and doesn't then I will hate other breeds. I am not sure what kind of a mama hen she will be .... but yes it is very exciting!!.
 
Separating her in the coop or not isn't going to make much difference. Once a bird has been taken out of the flock for any reason, even if they can see each other, there will be pecking order "discussions" when they are put back together again. If you integrate mama and babies while they are still little (I try to do so within the first week or two after hatching), the mama will be very protective and be at the top of the pecking order. The other chickens will learn very quickly not to mess with a hormonal broody mama. When I integrated mine, the boss hen tried going after the broody, and my rooster stepped in and broke it up. The advantage to integrating when the chicks are young is that besides the protective hormones, the mama will teach the chicks flock manners, and if something happens to the broody (as it did here when the chicks were about 4 weeks old), the chicks will already be an accepted member of the flock - no messy integration problems.
 

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