Young Mama Chicken

[BigBlueHen53]

What fun! This reminds me of our experience with broodies. We had several (4?) BO go broody at the same time once. We marked the eggs with a marker and removed fresh eggs daily, leaving the hens in their chosen nests. Then the day came when we heard cheeping and panic set in! We were afraid the chicks would fall from the nests! So DH grabbed a hen and I grabbed a nest, hatching chicks and all (in a garbage pan lid, lol!) and we rushed them to a safe location (the well house) and repeated this four times. We blocked the hens from each other visually with large cardboard sheets we had, as one hen was aggressively protective. Whew! Everybody hatched chicks successfully and I survived the ordeal.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The way I see it you have two basic options, leave her where she is or isolate her from the other chickens. Bad things can happen whichever way you choose but chickens did not go extinct when broody hens were hatching with the flock.

The way I do it is to let them hatch with the flock. When a hen goes broody and I want her to hatch chicks I start collecting the eggs I want her to hatch. I leave a fake egg under her (you can mark a real egg) until I get however many I want her to hatch, usually a dozen. Then I give her all the eggs at the same time so they will hatch at the same time. I mark them with a black Sharpie so I can tell at a glance which eggs belong. I remove the other eggs daily. As long as you remove the daily they are still good to eat.

After the other hens have finished laying for the day I check under her and remove any that don't belong. I either just reach under her and raise her up so I can see all the eggs or pick her out of the nest and set her on the coop floor. When I set them on the coop floor they typically sit there a few seconds and then either run off to eat and drink and poop or go back to the nest. You don't want the number of eggs to build up so much she cannot cover them all and you don't want a staggered hatch. That's where the hatch is spread out so far the hen has to decide to either take the hatched chicks off of the nest for food and water and abandon the unhatched chicks or let the hatched chicks die while trying to hatch the later eggs. Almost all broody hens abandon the late eggs.

I've seen hens get newly hatched chicks out of a 10 feet high hay loft. She tells them to jump and they do, then bounce up and run to her. I don't worry about a hen hatching in a nest 2 or 4 feet off of the coop floor. That just means she will take them to sleep on the coop floor instead of going back to the nest. Broody hens have been hatching and raising chicks for thousands of years without help from humans. I try to stay out of the way as much as I can.

If you decide to isolate her I'd create an area big enough for a nest, food, water, and a little room for her to go poop. A broody hen should not poop in her nest by instinct but that instinct does not cover her food or water. Fix it so she cannot leave that area and no other hen can get to her nest. Plan to leave her locked in there until after the chicks hatch. Make sure the chicks cannot leave that area and Mama's protection as they can be at risk from the other hens if Mama cannot protect them.

That's a brief outline. Feel free to ask questions about any method. Hope you enjoy your experience, it is an exciting time.

 

[WoDia]

I sure wish i could have moved my hens before allowing them to hatch eggs.
I didnt think my other hen was gonna eat the eggs.

That’s very sad. I’m sorry. The way I always handle my broodies is to remove them from the flock. Then there’s much less risk to broody, egg, or chick.

 

[Ilovemychicks08]

That’s very sad. I’m sorry. The way I always handle my broodies is to remove them from the flock. Then there’s much less risk to broody, egg, or chick.

I will definitely remove them next time.

 

[WoDia]

I will definitely remove them next time.

What I experience with my broodies is that they do prefer to be alone during incubation and for the first several days post-hatch. Then they calm down a little and start taking the chicks around to explore. That’s when they’re moved to a grow out area where they can spend time near the flock before they’re integrated (and while the chicks are feathering in).