2009 is The Year of the Broodies....and ANOTHER One...(PICS)

[crazyhen]

Wow! all those broodies and no one to love those babies. Awh!!! I wish I had more room and could be home. I would have to go for another visit. I still would love a male blue orp. Jake ( my br roo) is crowing great right now and my neighbor stood on the porch with the phone and let me hear him crowing. 400 miles listening to a crowing youngun of yours. I am already homesick for my hens. My hb has surgery on the 1st. then I have to get him well enough to travel back to the mtns. Say a prayer for us. Gloria Jean

 

[gumpsgirl]

It's just because you are such a good chicken mommy Cyn! Your devotion has inspired them to become mama's too!

 

[nivtup]

We have been overrun by broodies.

RIR, Ameraucanas, BC Marans, Ducks, Geese, Turkeys OH MY.

We let a few run through the cycle, we are still trying to break 3 hens, A goose and 2 ducks are on eggs right now.

I think it might get worse before it gets better

 

[Mikeeeeeeeeee]

Twins.......two BO sisters that laid for about 2 months and then went broody.
Betty started sitting in a corner of one of my "community boxes" and the other girls would go in there and lay. She would drag them up under her.
She finally ended up with 28 eggs, and Buffy - her sister - went broody to help her.
15 have hatched now and they are sharing them and having no problems.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, Dusty has been moved to a broody pen adjacent to the pen where she usually lives anyway. I gave her five eggs to hatch. Here we go again.

Really, I'm not complaining. I'm happy that I have some birds without their natural instincts bred out of them.

 

[ebonykawai]

I have 10 RIR, 4 of which have been broody so far.

"RIRs rarely go broody."

 

[speckledhen]

I also have some of those lovely dark, big RIR ladies and I expect one will eventually brood. That's what I mean about the natural instincts still being intact with the breeder quality and heritage types.


Well, I decided that Dusty didn't have enough eggs, so this morning, I added a 2nd egg from her sister, Smoky, one from my older girl, Skye (hasn't had fertiles lately), and a 4th BR egg, this one from my Amanda. Dusty now has 8 eggs under her and is sitting tight. The upside is that she can be rid of her saddle for her brooding period since she isn't being mated. Bet she's happy about that, if you can even imagine a happy broody, LOL. I never expected her to go broody again so soon.

 

[becky3086]

I have two hens in the marans pen sitting on eggs. They hatched out one little chick but wouldn't leave the nest and it was wandering around the pen getting pecked so it is now in the brooder with the rest. The serama have two broodies setting on eggs, when one gets off the nest the other takes some of the eggs and vise versa. So far they haven't hatched any though. I am anxiously waiting to see if I get some seramas from them. I can hatch them myself from my own eggs just fine so the seramas have just this one chance to show me what they can do.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

So when will it be the Year of the Rooster(s)?

 

[Debbienmousey]

You're totally right! 2009 is definitely the year of the broodies. So far this year we've had 7 broody chickens and 5 broody guineas.

5/7 chicken broodies have hatched chicks. 1 I had to break up and gave her eggs to another broody and the other is still working. (Also I should add, one of our broodies is a second time broody purebred RIR from McMurray, lol.)

We've lost 3 guinea hens this year because they went broody and we didn't cage them before the predators got to them. One of our two remaining hens has lost 2 nests this year. The other hen is currently sitting tightly on 24 eggs. (I hope she still has them all). She is on day 14 and I am simply dying to see her hatch our first "guinea raised" keets.

We're planning on buying a dozen Silkie hatching eggs. Although honestly I'm not sure why..We don't want any hens going broody in fall because it's too hard to raise chicks outside during the winter. I guess we're getting Silkies 'cause I love them now and because we can start hatching eggs out earlier next year.

So yay for broodies

If we get overrun with chicks we can always let them hatch guineas.

I wish you all good luck with your broodies