Broody Hen doesn't leave the eggs ever!

[daytonfarm]

I have a pullet actually she has only been laying 1 month she's sitting on 9 eggs and doesn't leave them to do anything. I have to pick her up and clean up the mess and bring her food and water. My question is how will the chicks hatch under her, should I keep checking to see if they have hatched and move them or do they just naturally know to give them some space? My first time hatching and hadn't planned on doing this but she was so determined I decided to let her hatch them.

 

[pgpoultry]

First timers don't always get it right. This has happened to me.

An experienced broody will leave the eggs once or twice daily to eat/drink/empty, rookies sometimes don't.

I would suggest your lift her once a day and offer her food and water out of sight of her eggs. She will probably eat/drink/poop. Mine did. After about 15 minutes, if she has not found and returned to her eggs, pick her up and put her by them.....she pretty definitely will sit back on them.

Do not disturb her from about day19/20 as often the hen does not leave the eggs in the last 48 hours. Let her hatch her eggs. She will eventually get up when she thinks all that are going to hatch have done so.

Oh,and next time she goes broody she will be a lot better at the game.


Good luck for the hatch,

Sandie

 

[daytonfarm]

Thanks, I'm not sure what day she is on because she went missing and when I found her she had 13 eggs, I moved her to a safe place and about a week later the stink was terrible so I checked the eggs and took away 4 of them, one definately rotten the others not so sure, but they're were just to many, they were sticking out all sides of her. 9 seems more manageable. Should I keep checking for rotten eggs or will she push them out herself?

 

[pgpoultry]

It would be a good idea to candle the eggs once you have her off the nest, if you are unfamiliar with what you will see, then there are a number of useful threads on the BYC site. Throw away any eggs which smell bad , are leaking, cracked or are infertile etc (I'm assuming that there's a roo around to fertilise them).

Broody hens often know which ones will not hatch and push them out of the nest, but by no means do they always know.

See this hatch as a learning curve (it's a steep one as I seem to remember from my first hatch where I had two rookie hens go broody simultaneously), and heres hoping you get some chicks from it,

sandie

 

[Happy Chooks]

Are you sure she's not leaving the nest? I thought mine wasn't getting off the nest, she was even pooping right outside the nest, but then I started really watching the food level in her food dish, and she is getting up to eat and drink, I'm just not seeing it.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Yes, this is what they usually do. They think they are sneaking off, I think. Probably part of protecting the nest.

Typically they get off once or twice a day, eat, drink, and make a huge poop. Where is she pooping?

 

[daytonfarm]

She used to get off the nest, run around roll around in the dirt and then attack the dog, she never was able to find it again she would always go back to the original spot, so I would put her back in her "box" and she would settle right in. About 3 days ago she stopped leaving, she poops right there, huge mess, I lift her off the eggs scoop it away and then she goes back on. She might get off without me knowing about it but her food and water level look unchanged.
I did candle the eggs last Thursday, got rid of the rotten egg and the ones that didn't look good to my untrained eye I put aside, put 9 of them back. The one's that I pulled out I broke one open and sure enough there was a chick forming, even had a start of feathers, didn't look close enough to see if it was alive, I didn't want to know