Broodies on eggs? Broodies with babies? Post here.

[NapsWithChickens]

I had a similiar experience with my broody blue wyandotte today. I moved her off out of the coop into a dog crate/nesting box I set up for her. Nice, cozy, her own warm eggs to sit on... and she wanted nothing to do with the nest. In fact, she squeezed herself into the space between the roof of the dog crate and the top of the cardboard box. I remembered that you all suggested "forcing" the move by closing her into the nest over night. I did that all afternoon... and made the dog crate dark... and by supper time she was a broody pancake on the nest again! Yippee! Thanks for the idea...

Now I'm all ready for the two sets of eggs I'm expecting in the mail tomorrow: some silver laced wyandottes and some golden laced cochins. Between them and the black copper marans that my other hen is sitting on, I feel like a little girl waiting for Christmas!

 

[ursusarctosana]

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Hello. Your situation reminds me of my own. I have a Wyandotte bantam broody hen named Trudy. She's been broody for a while and wouldn't give up. So I ordered some Indian Runner Duck eggs for her and as soon as I did that she was out of the coop, running around, etc. I was worried that she'd given up.

I took her in the back room where she is now surrounded by the sounds of motherhood and I placed her inside of a cozy box in a giant Tupperware with a wire top, placed her food and water within reach, and set her on the plastic eggs (actually meant to encourage first-time layers, I think) and she pushed those suckers out of the nest and didn't want anything to do with them.

At first, before that, she was really nervous, squawking and stretching her neck, leaping toward the wire as I placed the food and water inside. She wanted out!

I eventually took a large (unfertilized) Faverolles egg out of the fridge and gave her that and VOILA, she is now sitting peacefully on that egg.

Sometimes I'm a little backwards, though nearly always successful at the projects I find myself in the middle of, however, I'm now wondering if my little Wyandotte will handle six Indian Runner eggs, but I may be in luck. One of my Phoenix, the Welsummer X, is acting strange. She's hogging a nest and clucking. Tonight I went out to close up the coop door at around 8:30 p.m. and there she was on the floor in a bowl-shaped nest-type hole she'd made, but she was lying on her side. I thought, at first, she may be injured, so I knelt down and up she jumped and leapt a few feet away and then proceeded to lie right down on her side again. When I moved back and stood up she went right back to the bowl and began dust-bathing.

Strange behavior! I'm starting to wonder if she's not going broody. The clucking is a new thing.

Hmmm...Perhaps she would like to raise some funny ducklings.

 

[gckiddhouse]

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No, no. THIS is fun!!! If you want to see stress, go read the threads where people are trying to use incubators!! I have followed some of those threads and those folks are freaking out, worried about the humidity, the turning thing that stopped working, the temperature that changed for some unknown reason, it's day 23 and no pips or peeps. THAT sounds stressful!! I would never sleep!!!
No, the broody doing all the work? Not so stressful. Fun!! And it is like someone said, like waiting for Christmas!!

Just enjoy the process, and watch nature at work.

 

[ursusarctosana]

Quote:
No, no. THIS is fun!!! If you want to see stress, go read the threads where people are trying to use incubators!! I have followed some of those threads and those folks are freaking out, worried about the humidity, the turning thing that stopped working, the temperature that changed for some unknown reason, it's day 23 and no pips or peeps. THAT sounds stressful!! I would never sleep!!!
No, the broody doing all the work? Not so stressful. Fun!! And it is like someone said, like waiting for Christmas!!

Just enjoy the process, and watch nature at work.

I agree. I enjoy letting the hens hatch and raise the chicks. I wouldn't want to deal with an incubator, but I guess I could if it was an emergency.

 

[gckiddhouse]

I followed one guy's hatch. He started out with more than 40 eggs and only had like 15 hatch. He had all the equipment and thermometers, hygrometers, auto turners, etc.

Well, then, my friend took my hens' eggs that were under my broody for a week, took them home and put them in a rubbermaid tub and covered it with plastic and put a light over it. No hygrometers, egg turners, expensive incubators or the like. Can you believe they had 12 out of 13 eggs hatch?!!

I think it is a low tech kind of sport...

 

[ursusarctosana]

I was doing some research the other day about hatching duck eggs without a broody hen or an incubator and they recommended using a toaster oven. I keep thinking about it, though, and it seems 28 or 30+ days is a long time to keep a toaster oven on consistently. There must be some other way to incubate in an emergency.

 

[Beekissed]

Not to mention....the hen uses less electricity!

If it works, great! If it doesn't, oh, well? Not like having 40 eggs at once go to waste....just a small clutch of eggs that momma will hatch, care for, keep warm, etc. No worries!

 

[Chicken Girl]

Ok so i just went and feed the chickens and she was off her nest! AGEN! And i was out there for like 20 min and she did not get back in. There was a hen in there so yeah. LOL And she was makeing funny low in sound high in pitch clucking sound. befor and after she ate? So y is she doing that? And afetr she would do that the other hens would peck her in the head! Y are they doing that?

Chicken Girl

 

[Catalina]

Hi! Just wanted to share a few pics of my broody. I'm going crazy waiting until the first candleing date.....

Lavender asleep, with her head tucked under her wing.

Catty and Lavender - they hang out together.

Are you done yet?

Lavender is an excellent broody! Nothing bothers her, she stays glued to the eggs.

 

[pasofinofarm]

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One of the biggest problems is that most of these eggs in incubators are shipped. I can hatch 95% at home and only about 30-40% on shippeds even though I only buy eggs from people I trust. Then I hear that my eggs aren't doing well somewhere else, when my niece hatched some in a shoe box with a lightbulb.

I just don't know of any other was to really get birds you want from somewhere far away. I have paid to ship an adult bird once and it cost me $70 and then died a week after it was here from the stress and climate change I'm sure. I hear horror stories of whole batches of day old chicks comming in dead... I dunno... what to do, what to do?

But my best luck yet has still been with hatching eggs. My last were Black Copper Marans, got 8 eggs and 4 hatched... one very correct cockerel and three very nice pullets... Sweet! as my teens would say. I still hear from people who get my eggs that 13 of 14 or 12 of 13 hatched... and I sit around and wonder what was different than the poor person who just got one of 18.

Hope these do GREAT!