Do you have chickens that go broody? I am curious to see if there are even mild similarities in management.
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I recently had 2 hens I bought from rural king back in september going broody together. they accidently sat on the eggs, and so only had one surviving chick. I let them keep it for a couple days, but after a string of fox attacks that took 14 of my half grown chicks, I relocated just the chick to a brooder with some similarly aged incubator birds, for safety reasons.Do you have chickens that go broody? I am curious to see if there are even mild similarities in management.
I have multiple pens, so it's best to try and type it all out.
Pen number one: Dawn to Dusk free ranging landrace group (also has an aseel×brahma mix pullet): They are covered by one mature three year old rooster, and his son (still a cockerel), who will be leaving us soon. They are fed 50% layer, 50% "grower", plus whatever they find out on free range. Ages range from 3 years old, to almost 10 months old. None have gone broody
Pen number two: consists of 7 mix breed bantams. Two adult hens, and the five offspring of one of the adult hens. Both the mature hens have gone broody. The one that has offspring has gone broody three times, the other one only once. They have never free ranged. The first (unsuccessful) time time the mature hen, a pullet at the time was broody, they were in with a silkie mix cockerel. The second (successful) time she was broody, there were no males. She was given eggs from the landraces. The third (and successful) time she went broody, she was in with my pure serama cockerel. She had 14 of her own eggs hatch. It was also the day she turned 1. Hasn't gone broody since. The other mature hen went broody around the time her pen mate hatched her last brood. She gave up to co-mother the chicks. They have always been fed 100% grower.
Pen number 3: pure serama pen. All are about to be one year old. They're fed a 100% grower feed in one feeder, and 100% layer in another one. One cockerel, 3 pullets. Never gone broody, although the cockerel was an amazing father to the mix breed bantam's chicks.
Pen number 4: two mature brahma hens (unknown age), and one two year old aseel (possibly mixed) rooster. They're dawn to Dusk rangers (most recent addition, since it's only been a month since I've managed to free range all the LFs at the same time). They've formed a tribal system of sorts, the group from pen one and this group don't mix. They're fed 70% grower, 30% seed mix, plus whatever they can forage. None have gone broody in my care, although one of the brahma hens did go broody the spring before I got her.
In addition to the normal feed, they all get table scraps