Broody Hen Questions

[Eilsel]

Thought I would give an update- We're at day 18 of the hen sitting on the eggs I gave her. Unfortunately, I was not very successful in keeping the other hens out of the nest box and so she did accumulate LOTS of eggs over this time... I have snuck away any that she wasn't really sitting on that were squirting out from under her. I'm hoping for at least half of the 12 I gave her to have matured. We have also had LOTS of rainstorms this week and the nestbox is a bit damp as it's an exterior box... I put plenty of bedding in before and gave her more dry bedding yesterday but I hope it's stayed warm enough for the eggs. Yesterday I put a wire mesh "wall" about 2' from the nest box to keep the other hens out, and gave her food and water in her little isolation area so she can still access them if she's still getting off the nest at this point... and when the chicks do arrive there will already be a "brooder" area for them once she leaves the nest box. Hopefully we'll have some fluff balls by the end of the weekend!

I will DEFINITELY do things a little differently if I decide to let a hen hatch eggs again. First and foremost, I would mark the fertile eggs so if she gets some "extras" along the way I know which to definitely remove. I would also sequester her much sooner so she didn't have the chance to accumulate an abundance of eggs- I'm really curious to see how many she's been sitting on! I would even entertain the idea of trying to move her to a wire crate in the coop- I think if she would settle there it would make things easier for the hens who still would like to be using the nest box and also her chicks who wouldn't be hatching 18" above ground-level.

Really enjoying this great big experiment of chicken-keeping... I'll be back with an update early next week as to whether or not the hatch was successful!

 

[jas humbert]

Not sure how ornery your hen will be (I'm used to sweet tempered silkies who grumble when you mess with their eggs but don't bite) but I forgot to mark eggs the first time I had your situation. After a while I too had too many eggs under the hen. I went out at night with a flashlight (the flashlight app on my phone works well too) and candled eggs. You dont have to be an expert to figure it out. At 18 days along they are nearly all dark inside if fertile or if they are unfertile they are clear light yellow in the light. Toss out the clear ones and mark the good ones if the other hens still have access. Most hens are less difficult if its dark. Hens rotate eggs around sometimes so don't just assume the ones on the outside of the pile are the new ones. And good luck!

 

[Eilsel]

Day 23... still no chicks. My husband went to let the chickens out of the coop this morning and said the hen wasn't on her eggs, but there were probably 20 in there within the next 5-10 minutes she was back on the nest. In the last few days she has eaten a few of the unfertilized eggs that were under her... I suspect because she hasn't been getting off the nest as much to eat/drink and she knows those aren't developing, I sure hope it doesn't become a habit . I'll probably give her until the weekend, then if nothing has hatched I'll clean everything out and try to break her for now and let her try again another time if she goes broody again- with a better plan from the beginning! I'm still not brave enough to pull eggs out from under her to candle them... need to get some chainmail for that!

 

[Eilsel]

Ok the hen hopped off the nest yesterday and I took the opportunity to candle the eggs as well as I could. None had even developed at all I tossed them luckily there were only a few real stinkers! I think mostly there were temperature issues, plus the extra eggs issue, plus maybe somehow none of them were fertile . I was really hoping I'd get a few chicks, luckily I didn't have much invested in the experiment! Oh well, better luck next time.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

I had two girls go broody at the same time. One was the head hen and the other was near the bottom of the pecking order. I left both girls in the nest box they chose and (of course) the head hen is still sitting on her eggs and Blue was chased out of her box so often that she finally gave up on day fourteen. I candled her eggs and put the one or two that was still viable under Goldie (the head hen), but don’t hold out much hope for those two eggs. Goldie’s might hatch (fingers crossed! Hatch date should be the 23rd or so!). Next time, I’ll move Blue into her own, secluded area so she doesn’t get upset.

It’s funny tho, everyone talks about how wild the girls get, but mine didn’t at all. No hissing, no (hard) pecking, they’d both just puff up and give me the stink eye when I opened the nest box to pull eggs from the other nests (each of my nest boxes has three compartments, for a total of six nests). I was even able to quietly stroke their feathers for a few seconds while I had the boxes open and hand feed them scrambled eggs or scratch.