Can I let my broody sit for a week before getting her hatching eggs?

[kate2008]

I have a persistent broody so I want to finally let her have a try at some eggs. She started brooding yesterday (Monday) but I probably can't get any fertile eggs until next week. Is it reasonable to let her sit on dummy eggs for that long? Newbie here . . . .

 

[Ridgerunner]

I do it a lot. When a hen goes broody I start to collect eggs for her to hatch. Sometimes that takes a few days, depending on which hens are laying and which eggs I want to hatch. My last one, the one that hatched Sunday night, took about a week to gather all the eggs I wanted. I put some under her and some more in an incubator planned to hatch at the same time. She’ll raise them all.

Before a hen even starts laying eggs she stores up extra fat. That extra fat is mostly what she lives on when broody, that way she doesn’t have to eat and drink a lot but can spend more time on the nest. She easily has enough to last four weeks or more. I don’t want a hen to go past five weeks on the nest as a broody, but four weeks doesn’t bother me at all. Besides, my test to see if a hen is broody enough is that she has to stay on the nest two consecutive nights before she has convinced me she deserves eggs.

Because people like photos I’ll first show you the incubator chicks that hatched Sunday night.

Then the broody hen after I gave her the chicks. The incubator chicks pretty much dove under her immediately but one that she hatched came out to say hello.