Broody Hen and eggs move or not to move...

[mdkrush]

Long story short.

I got 6 hens about 4 months ago; determined never to own a rooster.

They are in a 12X8 coop/tractor (it was a coop till I started moving it around, which is tough but I still do it every 1 to 2 weeks)

The also free range when I get home from work till evening.
One hen went broody, once I did research to figure out what it was; I ended up getting some fertilized eggs and poking them under her.



Now I have a young rooster (all good, still afraid of the hens).



I left her in the next box and occasionally have to get the other chickens eggs out. I candled the eggs the other day and two are good for sure

and the other 4 were too dark to tell. I will be checking them again tonight and tossing any that don’t look right (hope I do it right..)





Okay, so I was thinking of moving her to a large dog crate in the garage with a next box and her own food and water.

I could possibly put her nest in a cardboard box in the dog crate for more privacy…?

Another option I was thinking of was using the cardboard nest box and putting the dog crate out in the grass, so she could come out and

eat and peck the grass etc.



Would it be ok to move her and keep her cooped up in there till after they hatch?



I could move her no problem, she does do a light peck when I mess around with her; more like a “what are you doing peck”.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Would it be ok to move her and keep her cooped up in there till after they hatch?

That's what I would do. She really isn't all that interested in foraging now. She'll come out once a day to defecate, eat, drink, stretch and flap wings then back on the eggs. Just make sure she has space for all that.

 

[kkowa]

if the eggs are dark leave them under her because they are forming if they are clear and you do not see anything take them out. best of luck!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Good point. If the eggs don't stink, I just leave them. I was opening eggs out of the incubator in my compost pile this week that I thought were a week overdue because they had set dates on them. I wanted to try to identify when they failed so I could figure out why. I must have mislabeled one and the chick was alive and about 2 days from hatch. That's one of the most horrific things (chickenwise) I've done.

 

[kkowa]

Good point. If the eggs don't stink, I just leave them. I was opening eggs out of the incubator in my compost pile this week that I thought were a week overdue because they had set dates on them. I wanted to try to identify when they failed so I could figure out why. I must have mislabeled one and the chick was alive and about 2 days from hatch. That's one of the most horrific things (chickenwise) I've done.

I agree I took one out about 4 days before hatch due to no growth scene day 12 of growth and had no movement at all well candling and it is the worst thing I have ever done let them be.