My 2 1/2 month hen's motherly instint kicked in. How young can a hen be to go broody ?

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kacklinghen said:

How I find pickles every morning
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Since she is older, she may have some instinct to watch over and teach the younger ones. I wouldn't call it broody, just social, they like to stick together.
smile.png


ETA: I didn't see the top pic the first time, she does look like any mother hen! She is getting early practice, might be a great future mom! So cute!
 
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justplainbatty said:
Since she is older, she may have some instinct to watch over and teach the younger ones. I wouldn't call it broody, just social, they like to stick together.
smile.png


ETA: I didn't see the top pic the first time, she does look like any mother hen! She is getting early practice, might be a great future mom! So cute!
Click to expand...

The real mom was attacked by a hawk, although I swung the shovel and knocked the hawk off the mother did not survive. Pickles has been sleeping with them every night. It is a blessing she took to them, my 9 month hens did not. She is a cream crested leg bar maybe it is in that breed to nurture ?
 
These are suppose to be the parents


Male or female I am going to keep it because of the sweet nature. If it is not CCL I will still keep her (or him) but that is what I was told. now you guys have me wondering what breed he or she is. Boy I am a newbie and learning so much on this site. thank you for your help. Here is the picture of the hatch she came from.
 
Respectfully disagree on the rooster. He does not have a crest or white earlobes.

The hen looks to have a residual crest and has the white earlobes, but her coloring is way off for a Legbar, she doesn't look to have the cream part. I can see your frustration as this breed is supposed to be auto sexing, with the males and females readily apparent at hatch. Unfortunately, the breed got so popular so fast and too many folks were looking to make a fast buck. Birds were simply propagated, not bred and culled correctly, and the auto sexing is easily lost. He'll be a beautiful bird, regardless.

Were all those chicks from the same parents? If so, the variety in offspring speaks for the parents not being pure. Two pure bred parents will produce offspring that are virtually identical.
 
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enola said:
After he molts his chick feathers he will look a lot like his daddy. His daddy looks like a cream legbar. His mother is pretty dark colored for a legbar hen.
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Thank you for the help I am learning so much. I started with 7 and now I have 20 I only been raising chickens since May 2014 and I am loving it. I get 10 eggs a day in January I can't wait til spring. I live in Louisiana so we have been escaping the storms people get up north
 
Wellbred legbars all have white ear lobes. But, as you mentioned, money grubbers have had their go at ruining the breed...... A lot of cream legbar roosters get culled because of the lack of white ear lobes. Breeders are also finfing out that ear lobes are only stark white on young roosters. There are a lot of problems being worked on in this breed.
 

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