I have set hundreds if not thousands of hens, often having a dozen or more hens sitting at one time. A tight setting hen (that is a brood hen with a good work ethic) never failed to stay on the nest for usually 3 and sometimes 4 consecutive days. Besides, I think that a hen knows a whole whale of a lot more about naturally hatching out a clutch of eggs than I or any other human ever will.
Why in the Sam Hill would anyone roust a content and quite sitting hen from a warm, commodious, and comfortable nest everyday. If a brooding hen needs to eat, have a sip of water, or take a bathroom break she will. Each of my setting hens are protected from varmints, the elements, and other hens by a 4 X 4 X 3 foot tall flat coop with a corrugated sheet metal roof, equipped with a hinged door 18 inches wide. Each pen has four 24 inch tall by 4 foot wide corrugated metal roofing panels for the sides and all the sides are set over 1 inch chicken wire. There is 12 inches of chicken wire visible above the metal sides but below the roof. Each hen is allowed to sit in the same nest box that she went broody in. Besides that each nest box is dry, spacious, and deep or long enough that it gives the hen privacy, or maybe I should say a feeling of invisibility or security, while providing maximum ventilation. Therefor it is possible for me to provide every sitting hen with both food and water at all times. Since my brood hens are in solitary confinement I find it unnecessary to micro manage a hen's pregnancy. Hens have been making baby chicks long before I came on the scene, and I expect that hens will be cranking out baby chicks long after everyone reading these words have been ground to dust by the hands of time.
Chickens are stronger in their own way than we humans will ever be. All human experience, desires, ambitions, and predigests not withstanding, human expectations in no way translate into how chickens instinctively act, or what chickens naturally need to thrive. If this was not true then our mothers would have told us, "Baby, you can't have cake and ice cream unless you eat all your grit and oyster shells."
If you continue to allow your hens to lay in the nest with a setting hen, sooner or later the brood hen will take exception and try to evict the interloper. When this happens the two hens will make one mell of a hess in the nest box, and they may begin eating their own eggs after the whole flock finds out how good they taste.
You don't even need to look in on your brood hen to see if she has left the nest to eat and drink. The reason for this is that every three of four days when she coms off the nest to eat and drink your hen will deposit a chicken t*** that looks like it came from a Saint Bernard dog and that smells to high heaven. You can catch this special aroma from 10 feet away if the wind is in your favor or maybe I should have said, "if the wind is in your disfavor."
If a human woman can experience great bodily changes during her pregnancy, then we should allow the lowly setting hen the same experience during her pregnancy.
Why in the Sam Hill would anyone roust a content and quite sitting hen from a warm, commodious, and comfortable nest everyday. If a brooding hen needs to eat, have a sip of water, or take a bathroom break she will. Each of my setting hens are protected from varmints, the elements, and other hens by a 4 X 4 X 3 foot tall flat coop with a corrugated sheet metal roof, equipped with a hinged door 18 inches wide. Each pen has four 24 inch tall by 4 foot wide corrugated metal roofing panels for the sides and all the sides are set over 1 inch chicken wire. There is 12 inches of chicken wire visible above the metal sides but below the roof. Each hen is allowed to sit in the same nest box that she went broody in. Besides that each nest box is dry, spacious, and deep or long enough that it gives the hen privacy, or maybe I should say a feeling of invisibility or security, while providing maximum ventilation. Therefor it is possible for me to provide every sitting hen with both food and water at all times. Since my brood hens are in solitary confinement I find it unnecessary to micro manage a hen's pregnancy. Hens have been making baby chicks long before I came on the scene, and I expect that hens will be cranking out baby chicks long after everyone reading these words have been ground to dust by the hands of time.
Chickens are stronger in their own way than we humans will ever be. All human experience, desires, ambitions, and predigests not withstanding, human expectations in no way translate into how chickens instinctively act, or what chickens naturally need to thrive. If this was not true then our mothers would have told us, "Baby, you can't have cake and ice cream unless you eat all your grit and oyster shells."
If you continue to allow your hens to lay in the nest with a setting hen, sooner or later the brood hen will take exception and try to evict the interloper. When this happens the two hens will make one mell of a hess in the nest box, and they may begin eating their own eggs after the whole flock finds out how good they taste.
You don't even need to look in on your brood hen to see if she has left the nest to eat and drink. The reason for this is that every three of four days when she coms off the nest to eat and drink your hen will deposit a chicken t*** that looks like it came from a Saint Bernard dog and that smells to high heaven. You can catch this special aroma from 10 feet away if the wind is in your favor or maybe I should have said, "if the wind is in your disfavor."
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