Broody has me vexed...

[mich9510]

Hi everyone! I've been hatching eggs via incubator for about 6 or 7 months now with a fair amount of success but I've recently tried to let my broody chickens do the work. First broody hatch was with an Ayam Cemani mix. She did awesome! She had a 100% hatch rate and even adopted a few more chicks I hatched from the incubator. She's been an awesome and devoted momma and I'm so proud of her. The next broody chickens were actually co-brooding and ended up killing each other's babies. Lesson learned, co-brooding is not wise. My second cemani mix recently went broody and was doing really great until yesterday. Day 20, 4 fully developed chicks under her. I found one dead chick, still half in it's shell, in the nestbox but off to the side, like it was moved. So I thought, Maybe it was an early hatcher that died. She must have moved it out of the nest. she was in the broody nest box, but it was in the coop with the cage door open. Maybe another hen killed it...I'm not sure.
Tonight, day 21, another dead chick, removed from the nest. This time the broody nest box was moved to a private location where no other birds could get to her.
I removed the remaining eggs (only 2 left) and put them in the incubator. What the heck is going on. Is she killing her own chicks? The last 2 are alive when I candled them but don't appear to be internally pipped yet. I could really use some feedback here. Thanks in advance.

 

[BYCforlife]

Hi everyone! I've been hatching eggs via incubator for about 6 or 7 months now with a fair amount of success but I've recently tried to let my broody chickens do the work. First broody hatch was with an Ayam Cemani mix. She did awesome! She had a 100% hatch rate and even adopted a few more chicks I hatched from the incubator. She's been an awesome and devoted momma and I'm so proud of her. The next broody chickens were actually co-brooding and ended up killing each other's babies. Lesson learned, co-brooding is not wise. My second cemani mix recently went broody and was doing really great until yesterday. Day 20, 4 fully developed chicks under her. I found one dead chick, still half in it's shell, in the nestbox but off to the side, like it was moved. So I thought, Maybe it was an early hatcher that died. She must have moved it out of the nest. she was in the broody nest box, but it was in the coop with the cage door open. Maybe another hen killed it...I'm not sure.
Tonight, day 21, another dead chick, removed from the nest. This time the broody nest box was moved to a private location where no other birds could get to her.
I removed the remaining eggs (only 2 left) and put them in the incubator. What the heck is going on. Is she killing her own chicks? The last 2 are alive when I candled them but don't appear to be internally pipped yet. I could really use some feedback here. Thanks in advance.

Just to test, next time you have a broody lock her in with food and water. Once, one of my mean hens killed two fully developed chicks in the eggs as soon as the broody got off the eggs for a minute.

 

[mich9510]

After the first chick was killed I did move her to our shed in a dog cage. She was completely alone with food and water, and some space to stretch her legs... that's when we found the second developed chick, out side of the nest. I took the other eggs from her them. She's still broody so I gave her some eggs that I won't be as heartbroken over if she kills.
I just don't want her to continue this behavior.
Should i consider nutritional deficiency?
One thing I've noticed is that she has lost some weight. come to think of it, she usually gets off the nest to eat, drink, and poop in the morning when I let them out. She hasn't for the past few days. Maybe I'll make her get up once a day and see what happens.