Letting my chicken hatch eggs

[Denise0708]

Hello! My chicken is brooding right now so we wanted to let her give it a try for the first time to hatch the eggs. My question is do I have to move her away, or will they be safe in the box until they are born and then move them. We have 4 nesting boxes, she is in 1, the other chickens will lay in the other boxes and they stay away from her.

 

[agold23]

I wouldn’t let her brood in a nest box just in case of an egg rolling/getting crushed from another hen moving in or the chicks falling when they do hatch. If you must move her, do it early on and do it at night. Make sure the new nest is away from the flock but I wouldn’t separate them unless it’s absolutely nescessary. When my silkie went broody she chose a spot in the corner of the coop right behind the door, close to the food holder so she got to see the hens everyday but she was still kind of protected. Good luck!

 

[Denise0708]

I wouldn’t let her brood in a nest box just in case of an egg rolling/getting crushed from another hen moving in or the chicks falling when they do hatch. If you must move her, do it early on and do it at night. Make sure the new nest is away from the flock but I wouldn’t separate them unless it’s absolutely nescessary. When my silkie went broody she chose a spot in the corner of the coop right behind the door, close to the food holder so she got to see the hens everyday but she was still kind of protected. Good luck!

Thank you for the response! So we have 4 nesting boxes. This was me opening the door so I can take the eggs from underneath her to mark them. The other chickens stay away from her and they will just go into another box to lay. That’s why I was think about waiting to move her until it’s closer to 20 days or maybe after they were hatched but i didn’t want anything to happen to them.