2 Broody Hens 1 nest

[Welders Wife]

Hi all,

I am currently having my first experience with broody hens. My husband has been doing the main chicken chores of feeding, changing water, and collecting eggs. When he went to collect the eggs, our first broody hen (white bird) bit him and he left her have the eggs. That was a few days ago and now that he's out of town I went in to get the eggs yesterday and she bit me as well. I managed to get the eggs from her and brought them into the house. I used a flashlight to "candle" them to see if any were starting to develop. I put them back in the nest area and she ran back to them. Today I realized that I would still need to get the new eggs and so had to move her off the nest again, recandle the eggs (I got smart and marked them this time) and put back the ones she had and took the new ones, except this time there was a different bird on the nest (gray bird). When I put the eggs back white bird went to lay on the nest but gray bird is more dominate and stole the nest from her.
Should I split the eggs up and try to make a new nest for white bird? They never laid in nesting boxes so we removed them as they would lay everywhere anyway. Their nest is just wood chips in a coop.

Also after the chicks hatch what do I do?
Do I need to remove the chicks from the main coop and put them under a heat lamp? If I remove them do I take one of the broody hens and move them to a dog kennel inside or outside the coop?Do the chicks stay in the main coop with my 4 hens and rooster?

I'm sorry if some of these questions seem like common knowledge, but we never expected to hatch chicks and this is the first time dealing with broody hens, they're 3 years old now.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

How many nest boxes total do you have?
When the chicks hatch, the mother needs to raise them. It's possible for them to do so in the main coop but I like to put broody hens in another building to hatch.
The first day of a hen sitting doesn't necessarily mean they are committed. The biting is a sure sign.

 

[Welders Wife]

How many nest boxes total do you have?
When the chicks hatch, the mother needs to raise them. It's possible for them to do so in the main coop but I like to put broody hens in another building to hatch.
The first day of a hen sitting doesn't necessarily mean they are committed. The biting is a sure sign.

Thank you for your response!

There are two smaller coops in the 10x10 dog kennel they're in, each coop has a nesting box, but they've never liked those. They have one coop that they will lay eggs in and the other one any time we put wood chips or hay in they immediately kick it all out and go in and out but never sleep in or anything. So I guess the whole small coop is the nesting box? We used to have 2 nesting boxes in the coop but they would lay eggs everywhere but in the box and after 2 years of the chickens not using them we removed them to give the chickens more space.

I've marked the eggs I gave her back today. Tomorrow when I get the new eggs the other chickens laid and she stole, will disturbing her hurt her willingness to sit on the eggs?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It is difficult to stop a truly broody hen from returning to the nest.
If you decide to move her, make sure the nest looks and feels as near the old nest as possible. I once moved a hen from a nest with an excelsior nest pad to another building with a plastic nest pad and she refused to sit in there. I pulled the eggs and the plastic pad, replaced it with an excelsior pad, returned the eggs and she went right in.

Sometimes before I move a hen, I duplicate her original nest, heat some fake eggs and move her to see if she takes to the new nest. Then after a bit, I stick her original eggs back under her.