Bad mom???

[hollycs]

My hen has become broody for the first time. She has been sitting on 16 eggs for the past 3 weeks. She has not however been protective of the nest AT all. As soon as I open the coop door she jumps off the eggs and runs around which is contrary to everything I have read.

Anyway, day before yesterday I opened the door and when she jumped off the eggs I heard peeping coming from the nest. One egg already had a hole pecked into it. Yay!!! We are going to have baby chicks soon right? The next day I rushed home from work, opened the door to the coop, and this time she WAS somewhat protective of the nest. When she did finally leave I saw that there were only 14 eggs in the nest. What happened to the other two eggs?? As I started looking around, I found two dead baby chicks One was in the coop, and the other on the ground outside. There was another egg in the nest with a chick making it's way out of it's shell. This morning, I went to check on the girls and my hen REFUSED to get off the nest, but I found yet another dead chick up against her body. This one had blood on it's head and there was blood on the hen.

I am SO frustrated! Do you think she is killing them? Why would she sit on the eggs for 21 days and then kill them? Any thoughts on what I should do about the remaining eggs? I have no brooder set up because I hadn't intended to need one. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

 

[HEChicken]

I usually segregate a sitting hen for exactly this reason. Depending on where she is in the pecking order, she may not be able to defend the chicks against the other hens. It may well be they who are killing the chicks, rather than the mother hen. Is there any way you can put up a barrier around her before any more hatch? I like to leave her enough room to get off her nest to stretch her legs and poop, as well as room for a feeder and waterer. I also make it solid (or out of small gage wire) so that the chicks cannot wander away from mum and get lost. When chicks are hatching, the mother will sit tight on the nest so if a chick wanders away during this time it is "on its own" so to speak, without her protection.

There *are* bad broody hens who sit much better than they parent. Its not unheard of for a mother hen to kill the chicks as they emerge. But in my experience with broody hens (vast as I seem to have broodies year round and a dozen at a time at some times of the year), the bad ones are rare. I've actually never had one. I've found that if they are provided the right environment, they rise to the occasion, so if I can convince a broody hen to be moved to a segregated area of my choosing, I will give her eggs to sit on. If she insists on sitting in her unprotected spot, I remove all eggs daily, incubate the ones I want hatched, and then give her the chicks to raise. Once she has chicks under her, she is much more amenable to being moved to a broody coop where she can bond with her chicks for a few days before I release the new family back to the flock.