AHH! The chickens have gone mad!

MiniatureCochin

In the Brooder
8 Years
May 30, 2011
52
0
39
It's the Broody bug. It's spreading like mad and it is incurable.

End of march, 2 of my hens went broody--hatched 3 chicks 4/17.
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Early May, 2 more hens go broody--hatch 2chicks 5/26
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Saturday evening, my bantam cochin cross
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decided to spend a night in the nest box.
Now she moved into the goat shed to set on three eggs. She has been losing lots of chest feathers.
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This afternoon, one of my hens went to the nest box. and has been sitting there for over three hours...growling and squawking if I open the coop door. I checked her chest---ALL her feathers are gone!!

HELP!!


Now for the real concern: hardly any of my broody hens' hatches have been decent. Not once did they get a 50% hatch.
Last year they got 40% and 25% hatches, this year thus far only 25% & 25% (A LOT of rotten eggs in every hatch)
I'm confused. This latest hatch had 4 eggs per hen. These are Big, fluffy cochins, too.

Thank you,

MiniCochin (formerly PuppyBantamCochin)
 
I'm just a newbie but- maybe your rooster has more girlfriends than he can handle? It sounds more like your eggs are iffy than that the hens are slipping up. You're still getting lots of chicks.
My full size cochin flirts with going broody but has never done more than sit for a few hours a day. Today she played with one egg for half an hour before even sitting on it.
 

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