two broody chickens.... advice needed please!!!

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teresa-78

teresa-78

Songster
9 Years
Jun 24, 2010
705
48
121
England
I KNOW THERE IS A CHICKEN THREAD... BUT EVERY TIME I POST A TOPIC NO-ONE EVER ANSWERS.... SO I HAVE ADDED IT ON HERE AS IM SURE MANY OF YOU
ALSO HAVE CHICKENS, AND YOU ALL SEEM KEEN TO HELP... THANKS PEEPS
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For the past 11 days my bantam has been sitting on eggs..... everything going great until this morning...

another chicken has also decided to go broody... she waited until my bantam left the nest box to eat and drink, which
she does every morning.. and took over her eggs, and wont let her back on..... do I remove the new broody so the bantam can
re sit or do I leave her on the stolen nest.... or another option do I go buy some more fertile eggs and let her sit her own??

Im concerned if I take her off the eggs and put her on some new ones she may just leave them, and as the other eggs only have 10
days left its far to late to put newly brought eggs under the bantam!!! any ideas what I should do.... im worried if i interver they may both leave the nest and the
eggs will go cold and the chicks will die????
 
I actually dont have chickens as well as ducks... But if they were mine- I would remove the newcomer and let the original hen settle back to her nest - keeping an eye on her to make sure she does. You could get the other hen some fertile eggs of her own- to sit on in another nest- How quickly can you get some fertile eggs???
 
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I'd put the bantam back on the nest and break the other broody, unless you want to get her some more eggs. Can you separate the bantam so others can't get to her nest?

Regarding your "shouting" - most BYC members live in the US. You posted at 4:54 a.m. in the eastern time zone, on a Sat. morning. Not a lot of people online at that time, even on the west coast it was 1:52 a.m.! And you only waited 18 minutes before posting again in the wrong section.

Have some patience and don't expect answers right away, especially in the middle of the night, okay?
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This exact same thing happened to me! I divided the eggs up and let each Mama hatch out 4 babies. They were awesome together and after the babies hatched they both wanted to "nest" right along side each other so the babies would go under either Mama!
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They continued to work together to raise the babies and then eventually one Mama took over....but it was a neat experience! If you don't let your other Broody hatch out some babies then she is not going to stop her determination until she's a Mama anyway! Blessings, Keri
 
I had 2 hens set on 1 clutch of eggs (it needed 2 hens) I should have separated them, cause when they hatched out one mama took over and the other hen picked on the babies. I had to separate the hens cause the one that was "mama" was not defending the chicks against the wanna be mama
 
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Ranchhand's advice was good. Another thing you can do if you need an urgent answer to a question is to use the "Search" feature.
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There is lots of information out there on BYC about broody hens.
 
Quote:
I'd put the bantam back on the nest and break the other broody, unless you want to get her some more eggs. Can you separate the bantam so others can't get to her nest?

Regarding your "shouting" - most BYC members live in the US. You posted at 4:54 a.m. in the eastern time zone, on a Sat. morning. Not a lot of people online at that time, even on the west coast it was 1:52 a.m.! And you only waited 18 minutes before posting again in the wrong section.

Have some patience and don't expect answers right away, especially in the middle of the night, okay?
wink.png


Actually I was not "shouting" I put it in capitals just to divide it from my question... if anyone had taken it as shouting then sorry it was not meant that way. I was very
concerned about my prospective chicks and did not want anything to go wrong, and 'worse' me to be the cause of it, because I did not do anything to prevent it.
That is why I was a little inpatient.... as its not my strong point (but bearing in mind I posted a question on the chicken site about a week ago and still have no reply, I was concerned the same would happen, and all concerns in the past I have had, have always been answered on the duck topic, im sorry if some people have taken offence to it, but all I am concerned about is my eggs and whats best for them as any pet owner would be, as they are so far in...... so I would like to thank everyone for there help and support, and it is great news.... I managed to get the bantam back on her eggs to the annoyance of the other chicken but she sulked for a bit and went and sat next to the bantam, so tomorrow I will go and see my friend and collect some fertile eggs for her to sit on, as soon as I can
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how many eggs are in the nest? I'd just divide them in half and give them each a job to do since they are both so willing to do the work- why not make'em happy? Even if there's only 3 eggs, give one 1 egg and the other two eggs, they will prolly end up switching again anyway if they wander to get some food and drink.
 
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