Broody Hen Thread!

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Labrador Lady said:
We got our first baby chicks last September.Easter Eggers started going broody a month ago. I took her out of their coop and put her in a smaller coop and blocked off her nesting box so she would cool off quicker. That worked and after a couple days of isolation, I put her back with her flock...5 hens total. 3 weeks later and the same hen is back to being broody. I don't breed or hatch out eggs so I don't want my hens getting broody for weeks at a time. None of the other hens have gone broody. The problem I have now is there is a bully hen who keeps chasing after my broody, pecking her then this gets the other 3 hens to go after the broody. It's been 3 days now and I keep trying to reintroduce broody to her flock but the bully hen is being a mean girl. In the meantime, I am growing up 3 new baby chicks still inside our house. I will need my smaller spare coop soon so I really need to fix the situation going on with my bully hen and my broody so I can get things back to normal. Any ideas ?
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I would remove the bully hen to the other coop and allow the broody to go back in with the others. Allow the broody and other 3 to work things out and return the bully to the coop after the others are settled for a day or two.
 
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Today is day 20. When I checked on her this morning there was an empty egg shell kicked out of the nest. Now 3 (well 2.5) egg shells out and I hear peeping. We seem to be early!
 
slordaz said:
nope it's on the ground , will pt it up before trying again. and go extra days, Thanks PD
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OK, we might be figuring out the problem here. Yes put it at least a few inches off the dirt so plenty of air can get under it. Don't even set it on bricks or blocks etc because she will get right over them and set right there. If I use bricks/blocks I only allow the cage to slightly catch the edge of the bricks so she has nothing to lay on----No hay, bedding, boards nothing that she can lay on. Good Luck on your next attempt. Let Us Know how that works.
 
FarmerMac said:
I have one with Spurs no problems at all. Here she is with her new batch of Dominique chicks. Her spurs are about an inch long. You can zoom in to see them.

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Well I am sad to say, the leghorn hen turned into a bad momma! I thought she kept breaking eggs, but turns out I think they were just rotten and burst when barely moved or touched. Out of the 8 eggs from my neighbor, only 2 hatched successfully, would have been 3 but when the third was pipping and chirping, she kept pecking at it! I know this because I had 1 of my eggs under her, a blue-green one, and I was able to save that chick, gave it to my silkie, and she cared for it like a great mom! Well when the blue-green egg started pipping, the chick was chirping. I left it alone of course, but then an egg burst and I had to clean out the nest, so she started pecking at this baby chick, she cracked the shell too. I was frantic and thus why I gave it to silkie!

Then another hatched, which was great, but then another one, when I wasn't home, had tried to hatch with it but the same thing happened, you could see the red beak where momma was pecking it like the other, and the shell was all cracked like the blue-green one as well, but because I was not home when this was happening, I could not save the chick and it died.

Moving forward, a baby that was successful hatch after the blue-green egg ended up dying. She had 3 babies, and I thought she was feeding them, I would fill the feeder sometimes 2 to 3 times a day thinking that she is dumping the food all the time. But I started to notice after a bout 4 or 5 days that she doesn't make as much noises to eat like my silkie does, also, it seemed she always took the first of the meal worms I would put out for them to scratch for. So I didn't realize that the baby hadn't been getting a good amount of food, until on my way home from work, my daughter tells me it had been chirping all day, non stop, cant stand up anymore and started to close its eyes. At one point she said the baby had been lying down on its side chirping with its eyes close. My mom was there with them and she took the baby chick out and started to try to syringe feed and water it, I guess it was seeming better but she didn't know I had the probiotics and electrolyte water mix. So I got home and mixed some up, the chick started looking a lot better after a couple of hours, up moving around, I tried to give it back to momma, but she wouldn't take it back, so I thought Id try to feed her and her babies and thats when I realized, in watching the other babies that she wasn't helping them eat, she would scratch and peck and scratch and peck and make noise but the chicks weren't eating.

It was then I decided to take her out and the babies, seperate them gave the babies a heat lamp, and put the momma outside. I kept on the baby chick that was failing, giving it water and starter mash. It was doing great. Then I had the thought, maybe silkie will take the babies, so I took the 2 stronger ones out and put them with the silkie. All her chicks looked like chipmunks, and 1 of the 2 new babies was also chipmunk marked, but the other was yellow, she picked on the yellow, but I kept putting it under her, and kept after her to stop, and she did, eventually, but those 2 learned how to eat! The other one, when it got lots better, I put it under her before bed, only to wake up in the morning and find it gone, ice cold and flat! I don't know if it was it got too cold when the mom moved, or if it was squashed from having 7 babies under her, maybe a combo of both!

So I have now deemed Nubs, the light brown leghorn, not fit to brood!

Now she doesn't know what to do, she hangs out in the coop area, sits on nests at times, maybe she is going to start laying again soon?
 
I just had my first broody hen. She's an austrolaup (sp?) from a hatchery. She's 2 and she just hatched out 5 babies. They're really cute. I'm so excited. I'll have to take some pics
 
It's been a crappy, nasty, everything that could go wrong did go wrong kinda day. Then I went out to gather eggs and.....

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AGGIE IS BROODY AGAIN!
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Out of the clear blue, no warning. She isn't sitting on the plastic eggs I'd left out but happily settled in on 6 eggs. Just to test the water, I took two eggs out of an empty nest and laid them in front of her. She immediately tucked them under her and when I stroked her back she gave me that wonderful raptor, don't touch me or I'll rip your arm off, growl.

I wondered why she didn't come out after her usual treats tonight. Now I know. The big question now is do I let her keep the 8 she is sitting on or do I get 4 hatching eggs, different breeds and try to add some variety to my flock? The first clutch of eggs turned out so well and the youngsters are so great makes me want to stay with my own eggs. Got till morning when I put her in her broody lock up to decide.

So the day ended great!
 

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