7 eggs under 2 broody hens in 1 nest problem...

[Sonya9]

I don't know what your coop is like other than what you've describe, but when I tried to move a broody to a broody pen, she rejected the nest. After that I cut up a cardboard box and made a "nest box" and put it on the ground in the corner of the coop and rigged up a temp enclosure using chicken wire. I made a box around her basically. That was more to keep other hens out rather than keep her in. She took right to the nest because she was still in her familiar environment. When the babies hatched, after a week I removed her enclosure and let them do as they please.

Another idea that would probably work is to literally "box her in" meaning put up cardboard walls around the nest box, or maybe 3 walls in front with the back open so she can leave to poop/eat etc... Once the bird is used to looking at the cardboard move the whole thing (nest box, cardboard walls etc...) at night into a separate chick pen so in the morning it looks exactly like her old spot did.

As she settles into the new spot the walls can slowly be pulled back/removed. Broody is like a "trance state" and anything that disrupts the trance upsets them, if the visual surroundings look the same I would bet it would work.

 

[wolfinator]

Well, bad news. I lost all the eggs. The duck egg wasn't fertile and other hens demanding to lay their eggs in that nest resulted in loss of all the eggs. I did find out, these 2 Cuckoo Marans have huge attitude problems, even without any eggs under them. The darker one almost took my eye out last night while checking other nests for eggs, she got me 1 inch below my eye because of my glasses (she's in lock down for it). I'm still hopeful of a fall or winter broody to naturally hatch some Easter Egger eggs. I'm not giving up. Out of 10 E.E., 8 are very friendly. 2 of my 3 Prairie Bluebell's are not friendly, all my olive eggers are too. I have 1 that is all white, I have white/red, red/gray, brown/gold some with no beards or ear tufts, a few with small beards/ear tufts and a few with full beards/ear tufts.

I did get 10 female Runner ducklings in from California Hatchery although a week later than original stated shipping date (7/27). They finally shipped on 8/4, got them on 8/6, all were alive and talkative (especially after they got a drink for the ride home). Oops, they got sent to wrong postal office and we had to drive several towns over to get them. It was my first experience with mail delivery of live poultry.