1st time BROODY questions please HELP!

[Layin Eggs]

One of my Wheaton Marans has gone broody. Unfortunately we had no fertile eggs (no roos). Yesterday i was able to purchase some fertile Aracauna eggs locally. She took to the eggs pretty well but then my husband tried to move her and the eggs to a lower safer location and she go up and moved back to her nesting box. So my husband moved the eggs back under her and she seems happy with them. My concern is that the nesting box she is in is about 3 feet of the floor. Do we have to worry about the height once the chicks hatch? Do you think they will fall out and get hurt? I was thinking to leave her be until around day 19 or 20 and then maybe try to move her to floor level. Is that bad? I don't know for sure if they will even hatch, but I don't want to risk the chicks getting hurt. Please let me know your thoughts / experiences.

We had placed 12 eggs for her , but she is still leting our hens add to it. (adding unfertile eggs) Will she stop them soon or do i need to worry about removing the unfertile ones?


Thanks for your help!

Lisa

 

[Sunny Side Up]

You should try to place a barricade around this broody hen so the other hens don't keep interrupting her as she sets. Laying hens are like NYC parents of preschoolers, following the trendiest places to leave their children. That's why they tend to use the same nest boxes -- "Others thought that was a good place to lay, I'll lay there too"-- and the sight of a broody hen gets them thinking "Wow, she's going to hatch eggs there, I better get my egg there too!"

Or you could try again to move this hen to a separate location, but make sure to do it after dark and try to move the hen & her nest together if at all possible. Move her whole nest box, or slide a piece of cardboard under her & her nest and scoop them up together.

If she stays in her high-rise nest site, you could wait until the day the chicks hatch to move them all to a lower site. On hatch day the hen will sit in the nest all day long as the eggs hatch throughout the day. The chicks will stay in the nest with Mama waiting for their siblings to hatch. You can wait until that night, the chicks shouldn't be trying to leave the nest before then.

Let us know how well she does, I wish you all great success!

 

[The Poultry Peanut]

Pretty well sums it up

 

[Layin Eggs]

Thanks for the great suggestions. I will pass them along to my husband.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This thread gives pretty good detail in how some people move a broody hen. She does need to be confined at least for a few days so she will accept her new home. Many people leave her locked up where the other hens cannot get to her nest to lay eggs for the whole time,not in a dark box but in a wire pen. Just make sure there is enough room for water, food, and for her to get off the nest and go poop.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=162759

My concern is that the nesting box she is in is about 3 feet of the floor. Do we have to worry about the height once the chicks hatch? Do you think they will fall out and get hurt?

I personally would not worry too much about the chicks getting hurt by falling 3 feet. I have seen chicks hatch out in a hay loft 10 feet off the ground and get down without injury. You are dealing with living animals so injury is certainly possible. You could mound up litter once they start to hatch to give them less distance to fall and something softer to land on. What I would worry about more if your nest does not have a good lip is that a chick would fall out of the nest before all eggs have hatched and not be able to get back in. You can resolve all this if you move the broody to a lower location.

We had placed 12 eggs for her , but she is still leting our hens add to it. (adding unfertile eggs) Will she stop them soon or do i need to worry about removing the unfertile ones?

The broody will not stop the other hens from laying with her. She will accept any eggs she can get. With the Araucana eggs, you should be able to tell which you want her to hatch. You need to remove the others daily. She can get so many eggs she cannot cover them all, some of the fertile eggs will cool off, and the chick inside will die. If you remove the eggs in the afternoon or evening every day, you can still eat the eggs but don't leave them under her for more than 12 hours if you plan on eating them.

 

[basicliving]

I pretty much agree with all you've been told so far. I had two broodies that hatched out chicks in their nest boxes - and I moved them the day after the chicks hatched to pens I constructed on the floor and they settled right in with the new chicks.

If you leave her in the nest box and can't section it off to keep the other hens out, I would mark the eggs she is setting on with a permanent marker - then each evening remove any that aren't marked that have been left by the others.

Let us know how it goes!

Penny

 

[Southernbelle]

I only have bantum broodies but I've heard that trying to move a standard broody will break their broodiness easier than it will a bantam broody. My nestboxes are old cat littler buckets, so I can pick up broody, nest and all to move to a safe place without disturbing her nest and that works really well. Since it's her first time, I'd just leave her where she is to brood. After the babies hatch you can move the whole family to floor level.

You should remove any eggs that the other hens lay in her nest. This usually isn't a problem for me, I just check the nests daily. Once I had a broody getting hauled off the nest every day by another hen who wanted to lay her egg, so I moved that broody. If yours isn't getting beaten up then it's probably safe to leave her where she is.

 

[Layin Eggs]

Thanks for all the great info...I will keep you all posted.

 

[keystonepaul]

I Took my three hole homemade wooden nesting box off the wall and to the floor. Then I put her eggs into a large plastic storage cotainer turned on it's side so I could put a chick feeder on one side and a water near the hen. She took to it fine and I removed the nesting box trio entirely from that section. She hatched them in the new plastic floor nest and everything has been going fine. Good luck. I bet you could put plastic kick balls in the nest to prevent the broody from getting back in them then I wouldn't have had to take it off the wall. We'll see next time. Good luck, keystonepaul

 

[The Wolf Queen]

In my broody experience I would say leave her and collect unfertile eggs on a daily basis(mark the fertile ones with a permanent marker). Then when each chick hatches take them out and put them in a brooder, because other hens will also kill the chicks