moving broody hens

LizaBlue · Mar 26, 2012

Sounds good

why is it we never have all we need when we need it? I've got my chick room full of chicks born in Feb, my brooder full with a mama and eggs (another pipped, yay!), and I thought I was going to get some more eggs this week. I need 3 coops to separate the chicks in my chick room, runs for those coops + a run for the new babies, and if another hen goes broody I'll need another brooder, lol.

triplepurpose · Mar 26, 2012

chickenobsessed said:
ok i think i will just leave her where see is and get the fresh eggs everyday and will she sit on all the eggs to hatch or after a few hatch and she gets off the nest should i put them in an incubator because i get 3-4 eggs a day and i wanted to put about 12-15 eggs or more eggs in their. But they will hatch on different days so i didnt know if she wout sit on all of them until they hatch????????

Ok, if I understand what you're saying correctly...

It makes no difference at all when the eggs were LAID, because they won't start to develop until the hen "starts to set" on them. By which I mean that at a certain point she will stop laying, tuck the eggs up under her, and then stay there for three weeks, turning the eggs constantly, and only getting up once or maybe twice in a twenty-four hour period. If she is still wandering in and out throughout the day she is not actually "setting." She starts incubating the eggs all at once, and quite suddenly, so that they will all hatch at once (actually, over a two-day period, to be exact).

Once she has actually started setting on the eggs she will hatch--or once she has started setting and you have placed your chosen eggs under her--you don't want to add ANY new eggs to the nest! She will still try to hatch these because she can't count, but they won't hatch when the others do and most likely will be abandoned after the first chicks hatch. Your hen may not be happy about it, but she will HAVE to abandon them or die of thirst and starve to death along with her other chicks while waiting for days and days for all the eggs to hatch, because a hen WILL NOT LEAVE the nest (even to poop) during the time the eggs are hatching! A couple days after the first eggs hatch, she will likely (and rightly) assume that something is wrong with the remaining eggs, and decide to cut her losses and leave the nest with the chicks to look for food and water.

In the "wild" or in a "free-range" setting, a hen will avoid this confusion and complication by hiding her nest where none of the other hens (or anyone else) can find it, and hatching her clutch in peace. But hens in the "unnatural" environment of some level of confinement, accustomed to laying in communal nests, need OUR HELP as responsible owners in an situation where their instincts are at odds with their surroundings. To think we can just "stop collecting the eggs and let them hatch some babies" as so many seem inclined to do is a cop-out that borders on negligence.

I want to emphasize that setting is not a passive process of the hen "just sitting on the eggs" like some machine or dumb animal; it involves a lot of active work and self-sacrifice on the part of the hen, in distinct phases starting with the initial broodiness and culminating with raising the hatched chicks. If you are unfamiliar with this process I highly recommend to do some research so you understand what's going on. You will be able to help your hen to hatch a clutch much more effectively that way and save yourself and her much grief.

This article is also a great resource for hatching with hens--I highly recommend it, as it helped me a lot: http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Broody-Hens-1.html

LizaBlue · Mar 27, 2012

Great info, Sky! Wish you'd been around when my first hen set, lol. Just learning as I go - all four of our living eggs are hatched now, but one is awfully puny

I'm afraid my hubbie may have "helped" it too much while I was out of town today: not only is it tiny, but still has yolk and umbilical attached. It was the last one to hatch - first one Sunday, 2 yesterday - and with the first set of chicks we had, all but one died, so we were both a little anxious. Don't know about anyone else, but our eggs are so hard, I have to smash them against the counter 2-3 times before they crack, and even then they still break so small I can use them for decorating like blown out eggs. We don't give any calcium, they free range and get fed Dumor layer pellets, so I don't know why they're so hard. In any case, the ones that died before looked like they couldn't break the shell and hubbie was afraid it would happen again. As much as I know how bad it is to help, this time when an egg pipped, I made sure it had an air hole exposing its nostrils. The other reason this chick could be so bad off is we didn't know we had rotten eggs in the clutch. We discovered and removed them after the first hatch, so I wouldn't have been surprised if they had all gotten sick and died - 3 1/2 chicks out of 6 eggs doesn't seem too bad, but I really hope scrawny makes it...

triplepurpose · Mar 27, 2012

LizaBlue said:
Great info, Sky! Wish you'd been around when my first hen set, lol. Just learning as I go - all four of our living eggs are hatched now, but one is awfully puny I'm afraid my hubbie may have "helped" it too much while I was out of town today: not only is it tiny, but still has yolk and umbilical attached. It was the last one to hatch - first one Sunday, 2 yesterday - and with the first set of chicks we had, all but one died, so we were both a little anxious. Don't know about anyone else, but our eggs are so hard, I have to smash them against the counter 2-3 times before they crack, and even then they still break so small I can use them for decorating like blown out eggs. We don't give any calcium, they free range and get fed Dumor layer pellets, so I don't know why they're so hard. In any case, the ones that died before looked like they couldn't break the shell and hubbie was afraid it would happen again. As much as I know how bad it is to help, this time when an egg pipped, I made sure it had an air hole exposing its nostrils. The other reason this chick could be so bad off is we didn't know we had rotten eggs in the clutch. We discovered and removed them after the first hatch, so I wouldn't have been surprised if they had all gotten sick and died - 3 1/2 chicks out of 6 eggs doesn't seem too bad, but I really hope scrawny makes it...

Well, good luck! I really do recommend checking out that article I shared though, if you have not yet. It helped me a lot to fill in the gaps and make sense of it all. It's very informative but accessible and I have never yet found any other resource half as good on the subject. But you have a point about "learning as you go"--that's where you really learn.

I don't know what to make of your hard eggshells BTW--that one's beyond me... Maybe your chickens are part duck?

chickenobsessed · Mar 30, 2012

sky the chicken man said:
Ok, if I understand what you're saying correctly...

It makes no difference at all when the eggs were LAID, because they won't start to develop until the hen "starts to set" on them. By which I mean that at a certain point she will stop laying, tuck the eggs up under her, and then stay there for three weeks, turning the eggs constantly, and only getting up once or maybe twice in a twenty-four hour period. If she is still wandering in and out throughout the day she is not actually "setting." She starts incubating the eggs all at once, and quite suddenly, so that they will all hatch at once (actually, over a two-day period, to be exact).

Once she has actually started setting on the eggs she will hatch--or once she has started setting and you have placed your chosen eggs under her--you don't want to add ANY new eggs to the nest! She will still try to hatch these because she can't count, but they won't hatch when the others do and most likely will be abandoned after the first chicks hatch. Your hen may not be happy about it, but she will HAVE to abandon them or die of thirst and starve to death along with her other chicks while waiting for days and days for all the eggs to hatch, because a hen WILL NOT LEAVE the nest (even to poop) during the time the eggs are hatching! A couple days after the first eggs hatch, she will likely (and rightly) assume that something is wrong with the remaining eggs, and decide to cut her losses and leave the nest with the chicks to look for food and water.

In the "wild" or in a "free-range" setting, a hen will avoid this confusion and complication by hiding her nest where none of the other hens (or anyone else) can find it, and hatching her clutch in peace. But hens in the "unnatural" environment of some level of confinement, accustomed to laying in communal nests, need OUR HELP as responsible owners in an situation where their instincts are at odds with their surroundings. To think we can just "stop collecting the eggs and let them hatch some babies" as so many seem inclined to do is a cop-out that borders on negligence.

I want to emphasize that setting is not a passive process of the hen "just sitting on the eggs" like some machine or dumb animal; it involves a lot of active work and self-sacrifice on the part of the hen, in distinct phases starting with the initial broodiness and culminating with raising the hatched chicks. If you are unfamiliar with this process I highly recommend to do some research so you understand what's going on. You will be able to help your hen to hatch a clutch much more effectively that way and save yourself and her much grief.

This article is also a great resource for hatching with hens--I highly recommend it, as it helped me a lot: http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Broody-Hens-1.html

thank you so much and the other hens are laying in the nesting does that matter will at the eggs still hatch on the same day right?????????

triplepurpose · Mar 30, 2012

chickenobsessed said:
thank you so much and the other hens are laying in the nesting does that matter will at the eggs still hatch on the same day right?????????

IF, if, if the eggs started incubating at the same time, then yes, they will normally hatch within a 48 hour window or so--not all on the same day. Count off 20 days from when the eggs started incubating and expect the first egg to hatch then, with the rest following over the next couple of days. In my experience this timing is pretty reliable. You'll hear the mother and the chicks talking to each other shortly before the hatch begins, which'll give you another clue...

And please read that article I shared before. It will answer all your questions, and more. Your welcome, and good luck!

chickenobsessed · Mar 31, 2012

she didnt start incubating at the same time because i get 3 or 4 eggs a day and their is 15 eggs in the box so they were laid different days!!!!!! i did read the whole article it did help me a lot

moving broody hens

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