a little story of my first broody hen experience (pics)

I hope this is where I can put this. AWESOME time experiencing this!!!

I had two BR hens go broody at the same time right when two young RIR roosters just starting breeding. I started out by taking each one off the nest when I gathered eggs each day. One gave up after three days....one still was wanting to sit after more than a week of me taking her off.


So I separated her and gave her 10 eggs....a few Red Star eggs and a couple BR. RIR dads



Long story short - I messed up the first hatch....I felt terrible!

Put her back with all the rest of the chickens.

She wouldn't stay off the nest after another week of taking her off, so I separated her again....with the same Red Star, BR hen...RIR combo for eggs.


Back at it.



Then built this for her to raise her chicks in for awhile at first and moved her and her nest into it.



Couldn't believe it when I lifted the top one day and finally had a little chick!!!....



....then another....




....then another.....




Ended up with four. One didn't get all the way out of the shell and nothing in the rest.



It was really neat watching them grow and steal everything momma was interested in....lol.....especially the grasshoppers I'd throw in there!





On their own.



Fast forward....

Been out with the rest of the flock for quite awhile. One of the pullets just started laying and one of the roos just started crowing.













I had a blast experiencing this! Curious to see if that hen will go broody again....boy she sure was very persistent until she got these babies!

I don't know much about chickens yet....really glad all of you take the time to post all your knowledge on here! I'm learning a lot!

Thanks for looking!

What a sweet story! I'm glad you posted it and those adorable pictures!

We have a broody last spring and it was an awesome experience. At least until I sold the chicks.....I won't do that again. I'm hoping "Ethel" will go broody again soon so she can raise more chicks.

Did you put them all back in with your original flock with Mom? Did that go ok?

SIMZ said:

What a sweet story! I'm glad you posted it and those adorable pictures!

We have a broody last spring and it was an awesome experience. At least until I sold the chicks.....I won't do that again. I'm hoping "Ethel" will go broody again soon so she can raise more chicks.

Did you put them all back in with your original flock with Mom? Did that go ok?

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Thanks! I appreciate it! I hope Ethel will go broody again for you and raise ya some nice chicks again! Yep, really neat thing to be a part of!

Well..... I didn't put them all back in with the rest of the flock with mom. One day I went out to feed mom and chicks and mom wanted out real bad...hadn't acted like that at all before....so I figured she thought she had done her job with them. I took just the mom back to the flock..... the flock picked on her something awful....seemed more than pecking order differences??? I put the chicks in later and the flock just did the pecking order deals for quite awhile with them including their own mom. Seems like in my flock it takes a long time for all to get along. I bought some chicks from the feed store and the older hens put them in their place forever....even keeping the new chicks in a pen in the coop so all could get acquainted before hand. I've waiting until any chick being put in there is pretty big. Maybe I should of put them all in at that time together???

I would of liked to of just put mom and babies back in with the flock after a week or two from being hatched and seen how that went like I have read some people do, but having already messed up her first group of eggs....she must just need quite a bit of time to hatch???....and this being my first hatch out like this....I felt I needed to mother hen them as well as mom...lol....and didn't know what was right???? I have a lot of learning to do and experimenting to do! ....and it seems like my girls aren't the most loving group??? Everything is just know all peaceful again out there.


Did everything go fine with how you did it?

Well, I'm ashamed to say that I sold her chicks. They were about 5 or 6 weeks old at the time. It was heartbreaking and I still feel terrible about doing it. They were scared and she kept calling to them. I bawled after the people left. Ugh. So, from now on I'm only going to let a broody raise chicks that we plan on keeping.

I bet that was hard! So many highs and lows having and caring for animals!

I seen Ethel on your website with her chicks.....neat pics! ...and those meat birds really look content with all that room in the video! .....very nice!

Thanks! It's a learning curve, isn't it? A lot of the decisions can be hard and I still struggle with some of them.

Yep! I'm really getting into the self-sufficient living, on top of being an animal lover and having to sell stuff, put stuff down, etc. Whirlwind of emotions and hard decisions...lol. Absolutely awesome learning about how to care for all the different critters and knowing where my food comes from though. I've always been super thankful that the people sold me the critters they did that was hard for them to do and scared to death while leaving the only life they knew.

I absolutely HATE re-homing any of my birds. Especially if they hatched here, either in my incubator(s) or under hens I raised... Some of which I hatched. I do it when I must, but it breaks my heart. My very first GrandChick is in my flock, and she'll be three years old in just four months.

Last week I re-homed five of my Cayuga GrandDucks, four ducks and a drake. It was an absolute Duck Rodeo catching and crating them; although I was grateful for the good home they were going to enjoy - with a real, small lake of their own! - I was most sad after I waved goodbye to the new owner. He accepted some of my chickens last year when I had to find homes for some cockerels; I gave him two hens for each of the three cockerels to which he gave a good home.

Still sad. A good sad, I suppose.

I have a hen it is a blue copper maran and I have had to block her out of the coop after all the other eggs are collected because she will sit on an empty nest. i have been doing this for about 4 days. I have a nice size cage in my garage that she can be moved to. I think I may try and let her set. Thank you for you experience. I may try and move her and give her some eggs to set. I tried this before but the other hen that went broody ate the eggs after a week of setting on them. I think I will put her in the cage that way I can get food and water close to her because right now she is in a metal nest box hanging on the wall and she never gets off that is why I started closing the nest boxes so she would get some food and water, putting her in a cage the food and water would be right there for her.

gryeyes said:

I absolutely HATE re-homing any of my birds. Especially if they hatched here, either in my incubator(s) or under hens I raised... Some of which I hatched. I do it when I must, but it breaks my heart. My very first GrandChick is in my flock, and she'll be three years old in just four months.

Last week I re-homed five of my Cayuga GrandDucks, four ducks and a drake. It was an absolute Duck Rodeo catching and crating them; although I was grateful for the good home they were going to enjoy - with a real, small lake of their own! - I was most sad after I waved goodbye to the new owner. He accepted some of my chickens last year when I had to find homes for some cockerels; I gave him two hens for each of the three cockerels to which he gave a good home.

Still sad. A good sad, I suppose.

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Thanks for adding this in here! Does sound like the chickens and ducks went to a good home! Since I'm just getting started building my flock up, I haven't had to find homes for any of them yet. I sold a weaned calf at a sale barn awhile back because I needed money and I happened to see who got it....I knew they didn't care for their stock and I had seen quite a few dead cattle from their place dumped in ditches by their house while riding my horse....I stewed over it and went to their house and bought it back....had to pay $50 more than I got for it or they wouldn't sell it back. I raised a couple litters of heeler pups, but quit because of a couple stories I had heard of what happened to a couple of them on down the road and happened to see for myself in one instance while riding my horse....I cover a lot of ground just out riding....lol....but other than that I think most went to loving homes. I still get emails from time to time from people who have bought stuff from me and that is great! I imagine if I start selling pygmy goats, that is going to be hard.