broody hen behavior with eggs

[Sharedspirit]

I have two broody hens so I decided to order some eggs and let them hatch them out. We needed to diversify our flock anyway.

The eggs arrived and I marked 6 with a 1 and 5 with an X. Tonight, I go out to check on them and one broody hen had all the eggs in her nest and the second hen had none. Any suggestions?

If I move the hens to another location, I don't know if they'll stay put on the eggs. I can't move the whole nesting boxes because they are attached.

I suspected this was happening with the last batch we tried to hatch so I marked them this time.

Last time I moved the one hen to a cage and she refused to get on the nest and pitched a real hissy fit!

 

[chickenlady]

I had two hens fighting for a nest of eggs, both were broody. I let them both keep sitting, they would take turns. When one got off, the other jumped on. I let this go on for 21 days. When all the chicks hatched, I picked one hen and put her in a crate with the babies. The other hen immediately was NOT broody anymore and went back to normal life. The hen I picked is now taking care of all the babies. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

[Sharedspirit]

I didn't know hens would move eggs from one nest to the other. But that's exactly what she did! I left all 11 eggs under the theif tonight and will see where they are in the morning. Maybe they will take turns?