- Jun 16, 2012
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Well we are hatching some chicks with our broody EE, it has taken alot of learning and some work but I think we are ready to go.
It all started 2-3 weeks ago, we went out of town for a few days and asked a family member to watch our 2 coops. When we returned we found that they had failed to collect the eggs from our smaller coop that holds two EE's that had gotten picked on in our bigger coop, in the week or 2 following we noticed that she didn't want to come out of the coop and at first thought she may be sick or something. This is our first broody in 2+ years and it took us a little research to realize that she had all the signs.
So we have a broody chicken..... Now all we needed was a rooster and we could have babbies right.
We live in town but know all the neighbors, after a few more days of her camping out in there we starting thinking about it. We did have a rooster in a group of pullets we purchased and had given him to some people we knew who had a farm. We talked to them and found out that a huge owl had gotten in the coop and massacred their chickens, but our EE Roo had survived and we were welcome to borrow "Captain" if we wanted to try it.
Older pic, form when we took him to the farm
So broody chicken - check .... Rooster - check
Breeding them was easy, he is a very tame rooster but wasn't shy with the ladies. We had planned on keeping him up to a week, but after 2-3 days we we pretty confident he had done his job and he was crowing up a storm. We were sad to see him go, but it was cool to have him while we did.
We have one EE that lays a blueish egg and we had said for the last year how nice it would be if we could get chicks from her and "Captain". We saved up 4 of her eggs and then used a few from various others such as RIR, black sex link, a tan chicken
(These are not the fertile ones, just some out of the fridge.)
We went back and forth over what to do with her. We didn't want her in a big coop off the ground and we didn't want her in a crate or something. We decided to go ahead and build her a coop that would work better for haveing chicks.
So at night on June 16th we moved our broody to the new coop, she seems to take to the new coop with no problem. On the 17th we switched from the non fertilized eggs we put under her for a few days to the fertilized eggs with no issue.
Yesterday we went out and she still had not "used the facilites" so we put her out and she pooped "huge", ate and dust bathed for just a few and then went back to her eggs. So everything seems to be going good.
One of the non fertilized eggs that I put under her was the "blue" egg from the first day after the Roo got there. I did not think it would be fertile from what I had read, but it was. Unfortunatly............
So now we wait.
It all started 2-3 weeks ago, we went out of town for a few days and asked a family member to watch our 2 coops. When we returned we found that they had failed to collect the eggs from our smaller coop that holds two EE's that had gotten picked on in our bigger coop, in the week or 2 following we noticed that she didn't want to come out of the coop and at first thought she may be sick or something. This is our first broody in 2+ years and it took us a little research to realize that she had all the signs.
So we have a broody chicken..... Now all we needed was a rooster and we could have babbies right.


We live in town but know all the neighbors, after a few more days of her camping out in there we starting thinking about it. We did have a rooster in a group of pullets we purchased and had given him to some people we knew who had a farm. We talked to them and found out that a huge owl had gotten in the coop and massacred their chickens, but our EE Roo had survived and we were welcome to borrow "Captain" if we wanted to try it.

Older pic, form when we took him to the farm

So broody chicken - check .... Rooster - check
Breeding them was easy, he is a very tame rooster but wasn't shy with the ladies. We had planned on keeping him up to a week, but after 2-3 days we we pretty confident he had done his job and he was crowing up a storm. We were sad to see him go, but it was cool to have him while we did.
We have one EE that lays a blueish egg and we had said for the last year how nice it would be if we could get chicks from her and "Captain". We saved up 4 of her eggs and then used a few from various others such as RIR, black sex link, a tan chicken



We went back and forth over what to do with her. We didn't want her in a big coop off the ground and we didn't want her in a crate or something. We decided to go ahead and build her a coop that would work better for haveing chicks.


So at night on June 16th we moved our broody to the new coop, she seems to take to the new coop with no problem. On the 17th we switched from the non fertilized eggs we put under her for a few days to the fertilized eggs with no issue.
Yesterday we went out and she still had not "used the facilites" so we put her out and she pooped "huge", ate and dust bathed for just a few and then went back to her eggs. So everything seems to be going good.
One of the non fertilized eggs that I put under her was the "blue" egg from the first day after the Roo got there. I did not think it would be fertile from what I had read, but it was. Unfortunatly............
So now we wait.
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