Broody chicken questions.

[crazyhatlady]

One of my easter egger hens looks like she is broody. She has been sitting in a nest since early this morning and when I lift her up to check for eggs she does not move off the nest and instead straightens her legs. And when I am done searching she settles right back down. She does not peck at me and has only once voiced her opinion at me. I decided to keep an eye on her for a couple of days to help determine if she is. I do have a ceramic egg in the nest that I put in there last fall right before they started laying and she is currently sitting on one of them in one of the 3 favored nests.

So my question is, if she is indeed broody, is a 24 x 24 inch rabbit cage with a nest and her own source of food and water acceptable to use to keep her separated from the other hens and rooster in the coop in order to see if she can hatch a clutch of eggs?

Also, my rooster is an Easter Egger and I've heard from different people that the chicks from such a rooster most times end up dying. My flock consists of 3 Easter Egger hens, 2 Plymouth barred rock hens and 6 cherry egger hens and 1 Easter Egger rooster. So would it even be worth her time to let her attempt to hatch some out.

All of course depending if she is truly broody or not.

Thank you in advance for any input.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That 24” x 24” should be big enough.

The way I tell if they are truly broody and deserve eggs is that they have to spend two consecutive nights on the nest instead of roosting. There are a lot of other signs that a hen might be broody, but seen hens with a lot of those signs that were not truly committed. With some you just know when you see them, but I still use the two nights test.

What those people are talking about is that some EE’s have a fatal gene. It’s related to the ear tufts, not the beards and muffs some EE’s have. I’ll give a link that explains it if you are interested.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/Arau/ACARumplTufted.html

What this means is that if both your EE’s have the tuffs, probably 25% of the chicks will die before hatching, but the other 75% will not be affected. If one or both of your EE’s do not have tuffs, then this is not a problem.

Editted to add.

Your EE rooster over those other hens will not have this problem.

 

[crazyhatlady]

Thank you so much Ridgerunner.

 

[crazyhatlady]

She's not broody. Maybe someone else will be.