First broody, bad location, what to do?

[wateboe]

Would love some advice on this... we have a OEGB hen that is brooding a clutch of her own eggs (yippee!) but has created her nest in the hay loft of our barn. I am concerned about her safety and the safety of the chicks should they hatch, but I am most concerned about her health since getting food and water to her is really difficult. She just starting sticking to the nest overnight two nights ago. He tried this early in the winter as well and we didn't see her for two weeks (she nests deep among the straw bales) until the weather became intolerabley cold and she reappeared looking skinny and exhausted. My husband found seventeen eggs that time, frozen by then.

Would you attempt to move her? If we move her we would need to keep her in a cage, I believe. She is the only bantam hen in the flock and is a great flyer, so she flys over the electric fence each day so that she can get to the hay loft to lay her eggs.

At the same time, we have a young (just began laying) wellsummer pullet that seems to be going broody but is not sitting on eggs.

This is all new to me, but I am inclined to let the girls do their thing!
Any thoughts?

 

[elliemay0305]

if you move her i dont think she will sit on them. all you could do is put them in your bator if you have one and move her. is there a bale you could put a small water and feeder on for her?

 

[gumpsgirl]

Make her a nest that is similar to the one she is sitting on and move her. If she is truly broody, she will continue to sit.

One of my Buff Orp. girls went broody on me about 3 wks. ago in the nesting boxes. I let her sit on some wooden eggs until I got enough of my Welsummer eggs together and moved her to a enclosed crate/cage so nobody could bother her. I made the nest to be similar to what she was sitting on in the nesting boxes and waited until dark when all the chickens in the coop had gone to roost for the night. I then quietly went into the coop, put the eggs in the new nest and moved the hen. I went back to check on her the next morning and she was still sitting on the new eggs! She's been there since.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

If you move her you need to do it at night, and put a cover in frount of the box for at lest 18 hrs in a cage or fence, if you don't move try to put a fence around her and palce feed and water in the fence

I've moved broodies a lot, when I do it I alway place them in a box or a single net box, by putting a cover in front of the box your hen will transfer nest to that box and will stay, sometime you need to hold them in there for 24 hrs, but thats rare.